When Women Run the World

The Journalism and Women Symposiums go by the acronym JAWS and are illustrated by a Great White Shark.
Which isn't to say these women are in the least bit predatory. 
Just that they have a sense of humor.
JAWS moves around from year to year and in 2013 was in Essex Junction, Vermont.
It couldn't have been a prettier location, even a few weeks past "peak" that uniquely New England season that refers to the time of year tourists known as "leaf peepers" triple the population of the Northeast states.
The Essex, Vermont's Culinary Resort was packed with some of the brightest, most erudite women ever to sit in the same room and lament the calorie counts in brownies.
Not to pick on men -- although it is tempting -- but women are decidedly un-sharklike when they get together to talk about being professionals and working toward life goals. Women nurture. Not to say men can't be nurturing, too, but it is less instinctive. Most men are like the adult male dog who first pushes the new puppy in the house away. A few male dogs -- I had one -- will wash and cuddle a puppy or even a kitten, but most don't think that way. There aren't being mean. They are being alpha.
Women don't have the time to be alpha. 
We are too busy juggling the aspects of our lives to worry about anything as silly as finishing on top of the heap. 
So, when professional women get together, they don't waste time playing games. They hold seminars and workshops and they talk. They network. There is a lot of give and take. People take suggestions from each other. 
JAWS attracts some of the top women in journalism as speakers and attendees.
One of the sessions was on women in management presented by Amy Resnick, exectuive editor of Pensions & Investments; Paula Ellis, a former Knight Poundation officer, and Stacy Marie Ishamel,  a financial blogger.
Among the salient points they addressed were several that should have been obvious, but occasionally get lost in the clutter of management.
All jobs are consequential and a corollary to that is that every employee, including a contract employee, requires a relationship with the supervisor and that relationship is important. 
Remember, if you aren't a manager now, you might be someday soon.