Four Reasons We Need More Women in the Newsroom

by

  • Women make up less than a quarter of the top management positions and less than a third of governance positions worldwide in the news media, according to the International Women’s Media Foundation’s “Global Report.”
  • In the United States, only 10 percent of supervisory or upper management positions in newsrooms are occupied by women.
  • A report by the Women’s Media Center found that at the New York Times, only 31 percent of reporting bylines belong to women.
    • Here are four reasons why having more women in the newsroom can make a difference:
    1. When a significant proportion of the news media’s customers are women, and media companies everywhere are struggling to survive, including women in leadership roles will help ensure that programming and reporting will attract a broad audience.
    2. Women leaders tend to create more gender equity in their companies. In the case of Jill Abramson—the first woman to be hired as senior editor of the New York Times in its 160-year history (before she was fired)—she developed and promoted several senior female editors and achieved 50 percent female representation among the newspaper’s top editors for the first time.
    3. Diverse teams are more effective teams. Differences in perspective and life experience bring better solutions to problems.
    4. More representation for women can help keep the spotlight on issues of equity and fairness that will benefit us all.
    All of the points made here about the value that gender representation can add could also be made for all dimensions of diversity. What other benefits do you see for increasing diversity in the newsroom?]]>

    Next Steps for Keeping Relationships Healthy

    by

  • Practice the skill of mutual empathy. Identify a relationship, either inside or outside of work, where you have recently experienced some tension that was not discussed.
    1. Write down what you experienced (describe the behaviors you noticed) and what you felt (for example, surprise or discomfort).
    2. Ask the other person for a time to get together to talk something over. Tell her you are concerned that a misunderstanding might have happened. Tell her what you experienced and felt, and ask her what she experienced and felt.
    3. Listen deeply to each other and ask questions for understanding. Do not interrupt each other. Really listen.
  • Practice naming and negotiating. If a misunderstanding was developing in step 1 above, then name the friendship rules that may have been operating for you, and ask the other person how they compare to hers. Try to agree on new ones that will work better to meet the needs you both have.
  • Practice role hats. The next time you are going to a meeting with a woman who has a role different from yours (with either a level or a functional difference), ask a colleague to help you clarify the roles before the meeting. Write down the role hat you think you will wear and the one the other woman will wear in the upcoming meeting. Debrief with your colleague after the meeting. What did you notice about your expectations for the interaction? Continue this practice before the next few meetings to sharpen your skills.
    •   An excerpt from my book, New Rules for Women, available at Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0982056982/).]]>

    When Is It Okay to Be Selfish at Work?

    by

  • “I am being undermined by a male peer at work. If I go to my boss and tell him what this guy is saying about me is not true, will my boss see me as selfish and self-serving?”
  • “My boss is encouraging me to apply for a position that would be a significant promotion for me. Why me? I have peers that would be good in this role, too. Will my peers see me as selfish if I apply for it?”
  • “I am burning out in my job because I am a supervisor, but I feel guilty and selfish delegating to my staff, so I do a lot myself instead of asking them.”
  • “I applied for a job, but I haven’t heard back from the woman who interviewed me. I am reluctant to call or e-mail her to follow up—I don’t want to be seen as pushy or self-serving.”
  • “I have been invited to give a TED Talk, but doing so does not relate directly to the work I am doing. The opportunity could provide me with a credential in the future if I ever change jobs, but taking the time away from my work projects to prepare this presentation feels selfish.”
    • Joyce Fletcher, in her book Disappearing Acts, addresses the need to replace the stereotype of women as “selfless” with a concrete understanding of the effectiveness of a relational leadership style. Adam Grant, in his new book Give and Take, reports on research showing that givers are more successful than takers—as long as they don’t “sacrifice their own interests for the benefit of others.” In other words, the best strategy is a “both/and” approach—you can be focused on the needs of others and on your own interests. Here are some tips that helped my clients take care of their own interests:
    1. Stand up for yourself. If a peer, male or female, is undermining you by saying negative things about your work, letting your boss know your side of the story—and confronting your peer—is important. Let the person know you are not going to let him or her damage your credibility.
    2. Put yourself forward for promotions. Research shows that many women hesitate to apply for promotions. In an ideal world, both you and your peers would openly encourage one another, if interested, to apply for promotions and then commit to fully supporting whoever is promoted. Even in the absence of the ideal, you can, and should, apply.
    3. Avoid burnout. Check in regularly with your staff about their workload and help them prioritize their work. If the load is too heavy for them and for you, go to your boss and ask her or him to prioritize your workload or to take some things off your plate.
    Taking care of yourself and your future is not being selfish; rather, taking care of yourself will make you a better employee, boss, and colleague.]]>

    Successful Boundary Management

    by

    To be friends at work requires total transparency—you must be totally honest on both sides of the boundary. It cannot work to be the senior or the junior person if you cannot trust that what you are seeing is what you are getting. I explicitly name the role that I’m coming from—which hat I’m wearing—boss or friend. My friend can ask me which hat I’m wearing in any interaction. She can ask me to change hats. We are always clear about how the role hats are going to work. I am clear with her that when I have my boss hat on, I am speaking from my supervisor role, where I am responsible for the quality of her work—and I may not be happy with it. There may also be things going on in the company that I cannot discuss because of my role, and I will tell her that. We can also be good friends outside of work, as long as we stay clear about our hats. I have joked that I am friends with bosses and bosses of friends. A friendship may not survive if I have to discipline or fire her—but I’ve had good luck with that, so it’s not always a problem. “Total transparency”—this, along with the role hats tool, is the key to enable you to “switch the light on and off” to manage role boundaries and relationships at work.   An excerpt from my book, New Rules for Women, available at Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0982056982/).]]>

    Have Relationships Changed for Younger Women?

    by

                My passion is helping women be successful, and I believe that having strong relationships with other women at work is a key to our success. When I speak about my new book New Rules for Women: Revolutionizing the Way Women Work Together, I am often asked, “Haven’t things changed for younger women?” I always answer honestly that I have not studied the dynamics of younger women’s relationships, which is why I was so interested in a recent article in the Huffington Post by writer and college student Lexi Herrick. Herrick does not claim to be reporting research findings, but many of the relationship problems she sees with women her age sound very familiar. Here are some examples from her list of 18 things women need to stop doing to each other:

    • “Slut-shaming.” Herrick encourages her readers to let other women make their own decisions and to resist the urge to express disapproval of other women’s sexual choices. She suggests this motto to live by: “Not your vagina, not your business.”
    • “Seriously, just saying ‘oh my gosh you’re so skinny’ is just as demeaning as commenting on the weight that a girl has gained. Just don’t.” Herrick says to avoid making any comments about other women’s bodies.
    • “Avoiding actual conversation with a woman you’re in a conflict with.” Though telling others about a conflict may be easier than dealing directly with the person we’re upset with, Herrick advocates for going straight to the source and working it out like adults.
    • “Being fake to each other.” If you’re having trouble with another woman, Herrick says, “Simply don’t associate with her.” Don’t pretend to be her friend, but make negative comments about her when she isn’t around.
    • “Sub-tweeting about each other or crafting any kind of indirect social media post.” Such passive-aggressive behavior may have been acceptable in junior high, but now, Herrick argues, “We are way too old for this sh*t.”
    Please read Herrick’s full list (linked above). Her suggestions are relevant for women of all ages. Herrick closes by saying, “Love and be loved by other women, because when we work together we are a force to be reckoned with.” Yes! What would you say that women need to stop doing to each other to build trust and support?]]>

    When a Friend Becomes the Boss

    by

    I have two close women friends at work, and one of them—it was announced last week—now reports to me. I feel somewhat upset because I think she’s upset. I feel she used to look to me as a friend, and now it’s like, “Oh, gosh. You’re my boss!” She was instant-messaging me the day we found out. She was asking, “Did you know about this?” She came to my house Saturday. I mean, we’re friends! I would never, ever want to upset her by any means. And I was a little bit upset that she thought I would know about something like that and not tell her. There is trouble ahead for these two friends if they do not talk about how this change in their roles at work means their friendship expectations need to change. Kate will not be able to tell her friend everything about confidential information she will have as the boss. If the two women can name and negotiate their expectations for how they will deal with professional topics that come up versus when they are just being friends, they will be able to continue being close friends. If not, the consequences could be disastrous for them professionally or personally or both. A recent example of the kind of trouble Kate may be facing with her friend if they don’t learn to manage the changes in their roles comes from a new coaching client in my practice. This client, Stephanie, a white woman in her twenties who is a union executive, hired me as her coach because she was recently promoted and her good friend, a man, now reports to her. He is upset because he was not promoted, and she feels guilty and thinks she must prove her loyalty to him and their friendship. She has shown her loyalty by telling him information she now hears in her new position, and she has also pushed him into the limelight in some situations where she was supposed to be the one there. Her boss is disappointed in her and is now questioning whether she is willing, or able, to step into her new leadership role. He wants her to cut off the friendship with her colleague and distance herself from him. Stephanie feels stuck. Without the intervention of her coach, she might lose her promotion or damage the friendship or both—but neither needs to happen. Later in this chapter, we will take a look at the tool, role hats, that Stephanie is learning to use. But first, let’s consider some other ways that problems can develop when a friend becomes the boss.   An excerpt from my book, New Rules for Women, available at Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0982056982/).]]>

    Differences Make a Difference: The Intersection of Race and Gender

    by

    Dr. Carlotta Berry recently wrote in the New York Times about her experiences as a black female engineering professor and the challenge of being seen as qualified by both colleagues and students. In their new book, What Works for Women at Work, scholars Joan Williams and Rachel Dempsey revisit the hypothesis put forward by Francis Beale in the 1960s, as well as by other scholars, that black women, and other women of color, experience “double jeopardy,” or are doubly disadvantaged by the intersection of race and gender. One implication of double jeopardy is that women of color have to expend more energy than white women to be respected and successful. They are flying against a headwind in their careers that is stronger than the headwind faced by white women. Williams and Dempsey acknowledge that lumping women of color together—even into three groups as black women, Latinas, and Asian American women—loses important nuances of difference within each group. Nonetheless, the differences for women of color found in their research are worth noting:

    • Women of color frequently described their interactions at work as demeaning or disrespectful, words that didn’t come up in the interviews with white women.
    • Black women are rated more harshly when something goes wrong at work than are black men or white women.
    • Black women have more leeway to behave in “masculine” ways than do white women, Latinas, or Asian American women.
    • Black women are allowed to be more assertive than white women or black men, as long as they use their assertive style in the service of the group and not for self-promotion.
    • Black women are allowed to be assertive, as long as they are not perceived as “angry black women.”
    • Latinas have to fight very hard to be seen as competent.
    • Latinas have to worry about being seen as “too passionate” or “fiery.”
    • Latinas are often seen as “too feminine” in their style of dress and as lacking executive presence.
    • Asian American women have to overcome being seen as “too feminine” and passive and, therefore, not leaders.
    • Asian Americans are seen as the “model minority”—too competent, too ambitious, too hardworking and, simultaneously, not sociable and not leadership material.
    • When Asian American women are assertive, they are seen as “dragon ladies.”
    Why is it important to be aware of these differences? We need to support one another as women in the workplace, especially when challenges come up. We can be allies to each other only if we understand both the differences and commonalities in our experiences. We can all accomplish so much more, both individually and collectively, if we can count on other women having our backs. Here’s to women supporting women!]]>

    Confusion for Bosses

    by

    My women staff will come to me and say, “How’s your boyfriend?” They feel like a relationship with me should be all access, and I don’t want to set up a situation where I’m becoming this kind of friend with them—not just a friend but an intimate friend. We tell all. Then all of a sudden I’ve got to be the person who says, “Get that done. Get it done tonight.” Then that’s a betrayal of womanhood to assert my authority when it’s going to cost them something. In chapter 2, we considered the negative consequences for female bosses when they are too distant or aloof and do not meet the relational expectations of their female staff. Letitia, a white technology manager in her forties, explained the dilemma that Penny faces as the boss: “It’s as though they expect you to subordinate the boss-subordinate relationship to the woman-friend relationship. They would not ask that of a man.” What is the answer? Both scholars and about 25 percent of the women in this study propose that women learn to make a distinction between being friends and being friendly with women at work, especially when they are the boss. I would go a step further and say that it does not need to be an either/or option—that we can be both friends and friendly as the boss, but we need to be able to name whether we are the boss or a friend in any given interaction, with a clear understanding of how the relational rules or expectations are different in each situation. Kathy, a technology manager, explained how this approach works for her:

    I do have two women I was friends with before I was promoted to management. I think we do a wonderful job of saying, “All right, this is a professional conversation.” If it’s a professional conversation, they know there are some things I cannot talk about. And if it’s not a professional conversation anymore, we are also clear with each other about that.
    When Kathy says the women are clear about when they are having a professional conversation and when they are not, this means that she and her friends have specified where the boundaries are for each of them in a professional conversation. In other words, they have specified what they can and cannot talk about in their professional roles so that the expectations are clear. More details about a tool to accomplish this type of successful boundary management will be described later in this chapter. But before we go there, let’s take a look at a type of boundary confusion that can be particularly destructive if not handled well: when a friend becomes your boss.   An excerpt from my book, New Rules for Women, available at Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0982056982/).]]>

    Do You Need a Thicker Skin at Work? Three Tips for Surviving Criticism

    by

    study reported by Tara Mohr in the New York Times shows that women have more need to be prepared to handle negative feedback. The study, conducted by Kieran Snyder for Fortune.com found that female employees were given more negative performance reviews than their male counterparts by both male and female managers. The nail in the coffin, though, is that this study also found that “76 percent of the negative feedback given to women included some kind of personality criticism, such as comments that the woman was ‘abrasive,’ or ‘judgmental,’ or ‘strident.’ Only 2 percent of men’s critical reviews included negative personality comments.” These numbers speak to the double bind that women find themselves in when they have to be competent—which includes making tough decisions and getting their ideas heard—while coming across as nice to everyone. Other studies suggest that for women to be perceived as both competent and likeable is probably impossible. Women don’t need a thicker skin at work because we’re somehow weak or fragile—an enduring stereotype used to justify why women are not promoted into leadership in greater numbers. Not only is performance feedback to women more negative, but we Western women also carry in our cellular memory the legacy of a not-so-distant past when our survival depended on being acceptable to power-wielding men. Not so long ago, Western women could not count on protection from the law, could not own property, and could not have bank accounts. Many women around the globe today still have no rights and are dependent on those with power to protect them. When others who are powerful at work are disapproving of us, we can feel like their criticism is the worst possible outcome—because, for a long time, disapproval was life threatening for us. Of course, we want to realize our potential at work and be seen as competent. What this means, though, is that we must, as competent women, learn to expect criticism and learn to manage it on our own terms, grow from it, and not let it undermine our confidence or damage our self-esteem. Here are some tips for how to deal with criticism at work:

    1. Be aware of the big picture. Read about recent research documenting the special challenges that women face in the workplace. Form a book group with colleagues at work, both women and men, to read and discuss several recent books about challenges women face in the workplace. Form a Lean In Circle. These are all good ways to get helpful context for understanding that negative feedback is part of the territory for competent women. Understanding the big picture will help you keep some perspective and sort out what is useful feedback from what may not be about you at all.
    2. Increase your awareness of your strengths. Being grounded in your sense of your own strengths is important. I often encourage the clients I coach to request feedback from coworkers, supervisors, family members, and friends about their strengths—not their weaknesses. We often don’t see ourselves as others see us, and we seldom get feedback on what we do well. Being grounded in your strengths will help you reflect on critical feedback. Feedback should always be considered for what might be useful, but being able to compare the feedback to what you know to be true about yourself and discard what doesn’t fit is crucial. Being self-aware is important, but, at the same time, remember that feedback is often more about the giver of the feedback: some people might be critical just because you are a competent woman.
    3. Build support, especially with other women. Create a “safe space” where you can share experiences and best practices for how to make sense of and cope with negative feedback. While our experiences are not all the same, of course, finding other women who have shared a particular experience in the workplace is helpful. Sharing best practices and hearing that you are not alone can help you stay focused on your career and your goals. Without this type of support, many women lose their confidence and their voice and then give up on their goals.
    What has worked for you when you have gotten a negative performance review? Please post your comments, and let’s share best practices.]]>

    The Negative Side of Fluid Boundaries

    by

    Confusion for Staff In the opening story of this chapter, Penny described one type of boundary confusion from a staff perspective when she told of women bosses who seem to expect personal disclosure that was then used against the disclosers. Her description included sharing of feelings in an all-woman space, where relationship matters, that was then used in a business or hierarchical space where “keeping score” is what matters. This felt to Penny like being tricked by her women bosses and left her wondering whom she could trust. Another example of boundary confusion from a staff perspective comes from a research participant in China. Jang, a human resources manager in her forties, explained that women bosses seem to use relationship as a standard for evaluating the performance of women employees:

    With women bosses, we talk about kids, husbands, vacations, fashion, and more emotional things. With men, we only talk about work. With a female leader, things don’t depend on your performance; they depend on your relationship with her and her feelings toward you. I’ve heard other women say they prefer working for a male boss because men are more fair and objective.
    It is worth noting that while Asian cultures are known to be more relationship based than is generally true in US culture, the Chinese participants in this study still ascribed key differences in boundary confusion to gender differences. It seems possible that both women’s friendship rules and feminine workplace values are being reflected in Jang’s statement. Both Ilena, in her twenties, and Angella, in her thirties, managers in Mexico, expressed similar sentiments about female bosses. They said that women are more difficult to work with than men because men are more task focused. Ilena also described another situation, from a staff perspective, where relationship expectations across role boundaries were confused because the boss didn’t manage them well. Ilena felt she had to pretend to be friends with a female boss because that is what the boss expected and the boss had more power. Ilena’s boss expected her to act like a friend, which included lots of self-disclosure and socializing outside of work. Once the woman moved to a different department, Ilena explained “I don’t have to be her friend anymore because she’s no longer my boss.” We can see in this case how the mixing of fluid boundaries and hierarchical status differences can create pressure for staff to fake a relationship when the awareness and skills for managing the boss-employee role boundary are absent. From a staff perspective, a lack of clarity about role boundaries, or the inability to name and negotiate them while staying in the relationship, means that women can experience disappointment or confusion about the behavior of women bosses. Female staff can feel tricked or pressured by women bosses or feel that their performance is being evaluated unfairly.  None of these outcomes needs to happen.   An excerpt from my book, New Rules for Women, available at Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0982056982/).]]>