Four Ways to Prepare Girls to Compete in the Workplace

I recently met with a coaching client who I had not seen for a year or more. I was surprised to find that she was still struggling with the same question we had last discussed—what she wants to do next in her career. She is in her late thirties and has multiple professional degrees and considerable work experience. When I asked her what actions she had taken to find her next role or position since we last met, she responded that she had found a position on the internet that interested her but had not applied because she did not feel qualified for it. She also reported that some opportunities for research grants had come her way, but she did not feel qualified or prepared to accept them. I looked at her for a moment in silence trying to mentally organize an appropriate response, and she said, “I know. Men wouldn’t worry about these things. They would just assume they were qualified.” I exhaled and agreed with her.

In fact, research shows that women typically feel they are not qualified or ready for positions and promotions that men with less experience don’t hesitate to apply for. While some describe this as a confidence problem for women, I have never felt comfortable with that explanation. For this reason, I was interested in a report by Lisa Damour in the New York Times in which she explores a potential rationale:

From elementary school through college, girls are more disciplined about their schoolwork than boys; they study harder and get better grades. . . . And yet, men nonetheless hold a staggering 95 percent of the top positions in the largest public companies.

What if those same habits that propel girls to the top of their class—their hyperconscientiousness about schoolwork—also hold them back in the work force?

The author, a psychologist who works with teenagers, shares that parents routinely notice that their sons do only the minimum amount of schoolwork necessary to get by while their daughters “don’t stop until they’ve polished each assignment to a high shine and rewritten their notes with color-coded precision.” Damour suggests that perhaps the experience boys have of succeeding in school with minimal effort is crucial to developing confidence that serves them in the workplace. Perhaps the experience girls have of overpreparing and being hyperconscientious in school is getting in their way later in life. Maybe they need to know that they can succeed without overpreparing and being perfect.

What can parents and teachers do to help girls prepare for the future? The author offers several suggestions:

  1. Help girls learn to do a little bit less and focus on economy of effort.
  2. Help girls take pride in how much they already know. One way to measure knowledge before studying is to take sample tests to see where their knowledge gaps may be so they know how much work they really need to do—or don’t need to do.
  3. When a girl with a high A average turns in extra work for extra credit, encourage her to consider that the extra credit isn’t needed.
  4. Affirm for girls that feeling some anxiety about school is normal and healthy, but too much stress is unsustainable and unhealthy. The difference between earning a 91 and 99 might mean some time to relax and have fun. She will still get an A.

Damour acknowledges that women are being kept out of top jobs for plenty of reasons besides their lack of confidence, such as gender bias, sexual harassment, and double binds. But perhaps we can help girls arrive in the workplace without the additional pressure they put on themselves to be perfect.

Photo by pan xiaozhen on Unsplash.

Dealing with Imposter Syndrome

Have you ever felt like a fraud or imposter—like you did not belong or deserve a promotion or award? I know I have. Kristin Wong, writing for the New York Times, explains that the imposter syndrome is a term coined by psychologists Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne A. Imes in 1978 to describe an “internal experience of intellectual phoniness in people who believe that they are not intelligent, capable or creative despite evidence of high achievement.” In my experience as a leadership coach, imposter syndrome is not uncommon, but most people do not talk about these feelings and think they are the only ones having them. Imposter syndrome can cause people to hold back, hesitate, or fail to contribute their valuable ideas and skills. They may appear to “lack confidence.” When they have an opportunity to put a name to this experience and discover they are not alone, they often feel liberated and empowered. They also come to know that these feelings will reappear from time to time and that they need support from others who understand when this happens. I am a coach in several women’s leadership development programs and one of them, the Power of Self Program, administers an imposter syndrome self-assessment instrument during the first of six classes in the program. I have the opportunity to debrief my coaching clients who take this course to hear about the impact of having a name for the imposter experience. They are often surprised and relieved to discover they are not alone and that there are strategies they can use to overcome the debilitating impact of the syndrome. The imposter syndrome often becomes a central focus of our coaching work. Some researchers have found that imposter syndrome hits minority groups harder, which has also been my experience as a coach. Sometimes a coaching client struggles with an almost debilitating imposter syndrome when

  • They are a member of an underrepresented group in an industry or organization. When you don’t see other people like you, this can reinforce the feeling that you don’t belong.
  • They were raised in a culture where they were told they would not or could not do certain things. For example, many of my clients of Asian descent, especially females, have been told all their lives that they are not intelligent or worthy. It is the belief in some Asian (and other) cultures that parents will bring bad luck to their children if they say positive or encouraging things. They do the opposite to show their love and protect their children from bad luck. But this can cause difficulty for those children as adults trying to succeed.
  • They are raised in a culture, including Western cultures, where social norms dictate that women and men should adhere to traditional gender norms and roles. To do otherwise can feed the imposter syndrome.
  • They are functioning in a culture where racial/ethnic/class/caste norms prescribe roles and access to opportunity. Breaking through those barriers can be difficult, both externally and internally, as internalized oppression can accompany us on our life journey.
  • They cannot distinguish between their own internalized experience of oppression and actual discrimination, where the barriers really are external.
Wong cites Rosanna Durruthy, a global diversity leader, and Kevin Cokley, a professor of educational psychology and African diaspora studies at the University of Texas at Austin, as suggesting these strategies for dealing with imposter syndrome at work:
  • Join an affinity group to find people with similar backgrounds and experiences.
  • Recruit a mentor to serve as a professional anchor, preferably someone who has shared your experiences.
  • Document your accomplishments. Record positive feedback you receive and your accomplishments in a daily journal. A review of this journal can both help you get through an attack of imposter syndrome and create a record to draw from to make the case for your next raise or promotion.
  • Develop a mantra to remind yourself that you earned your success.
What has worked for you?   Photo courtesy of businessforward (CC BY-SA 2.0)]]>

The Confidence Myth : A Book Review

The Confidence Myth: Why Women Undervalue Their Skills and How to Get Over It, author Helene Lerner acknowledges both the external prejudices and the internal factors that create challenges for women, many of which I have discussed in previous articles. Lerner also debunks some long-held myths about confidence that are important for us to consider: Myth #1: Being confident means you are fearless. Lerner points out that, actually, most people who are successful sometimes feel fear, nervousness, or doubt. In fact, feeling nervous can keep us sharp and alert so that we are poised to do our best at important moments. Myth #2: Being confident means being self-sufficient and not needing help or support. Once again, not true. We all need people to be thought partners, coaches, and cheerleaders who encourage us to take risks and go for what we want. Myth #3: A confident person is calm and certain. Lerner points out that “confidence is taking action while having conflicting thoughts and sensations,” which doesn’t always mean being comfortable. Myth #4: Leadership presence is something you are born with. Not so, says Lerner. Leadership presence involves skills that we can learn. These skills include being authentic, demonstrating poise during stressful times, listening well, dressing appropriately, and using power language to assert yourself (especially true for women). Myth #5: If I don’t do it, no one else will. Lerner notes that learning to say no, setting limits with people, and identifying and prioritizing our own needs are essential to our own success. As women, we are often so focused on the needs of others that we don’t even know what our own needs are. Lerner suggests that we make time for simple pleasures that replenish us; get rid of time bandits like guilt, people pleasing, and perfectionism; and learn to say no. Myth #6: Being a “nice” person means not bragging and not talking about my abilities. We need to be able to toot our own horns and advocate for ourselves. How will others know what we are good at—or how confident we can be—unless we tell them? Myth #7: Women have to be twice as good, or perfectionists, to get ahead. Even in the face of prejudices and negative stereotypes about women, Lerner argues that we need to give up perfectionism. Being perfect is not attainable and striving for that standard is not sustainable. It’s better in the long run to take risks, reach high, and grow from mistakes—and learn to use a standard of “good enough” to keep from getting paralyzed by perfectionism. Myth #8: Good leaders always make rational decisions. Nonsense, once again. Lerner points out that “research shows a positive correlation between intuition and business success.” Learning to listen to and trust our intuition, or inner voice, is not some feminine magical notion. In fact, both male and female leaders talk about the importance of making rapid decisions that draw upon their experience. Lerner states that we can even reframe intuition as “the rapid processing of everything we already know, everything we’ve learned and experienced.” However you explain it, we each have an inner voice we can learn to trust and that can be an important source of information. Lerner’s book is packed with useful information, real-life stories, and exercises to develop important skills for creating the perception of confidence. I highly recommend this book.]]>

When Gossip Is Positive: Introducing Transknitting

Dr. Peggy Drexel reports in the Huffington Post that a research team from the University of Amsterdam found that 90 percent of total office conversation qualifies as gossip. But while gossip, or talking about other people, is generally assumed to be negative, mean, or destructive, the positive side is often overlooked. Here are some examples of the positive results of sharing information about others:

  • Gossip is a currency for building friendships.
  • It builds social bonds.
  • It builds business networks.
  • It builds teams.
The challenge is to separate the negative and positive types of gossip—to stop the negative, which damages trust and relationships, but keep the positive. The participants in my research on women’s relationships in the workplace for my new book New Rules for Women: Revolutionizing the Way Women Work Together explained that sharing information about others is a friendship rule or expectation. They were confused about when it was alright to share gossip and when not to. To make the difference clear, I thought it would be helpful to have some new language to distinguish between positive and negative talk. For this reason, I coined a new term, “transknitting,” to describe the positive type of information sharing—the transfer of information about other people with the intention of building community or teams or of supporting another person. It’s the intention that distinguishes negative gossip from positive transknitting. The problem is that talking about others is so common that we often don’t stop to think about whether what we are about to share is gossip or transknitting. When I first made the distinction between the two and started talking about the difference with my friends, our interactions started to change immediately. We would say to each other, “Oh, wait a minute. I was just about to tell you something, but let me think—is it gossip or transknitting?” We began to be able to make conscious choices about what we were doing. We could choose not to participate in negative or hurtful types of talk about other people. What You Can Do When Others Try to Pull You in to Gossip Gossip is common—and I mean the negative kind—and the pressure from others to join in can be strong. Here is something you can say if others try to involve you in negative talk about someone else: “I may have missed something about Susan, but I think she means well.” In this way you haven’t offended the gossipers, but you have also kept your relationship clean with the person being talked about, and you have shown yourself to be trustworthy to everyone involved. What advice do you have about how to handle situations where others are gossiping? What do you say or do to keep from being pulled in? What is your stance about gossip, in general? This is a complicated topic that we can all benefit from reflecting on together.]]>

How and When to Tell the Boss That You’re Starting a Family

Claire Cain Miller of the New York Times explains that while having children is a routine part of life for working women, the attitudes in American culture about gender and work have not caught up with the fact that women have shown they can be both mothers and productive employees. By the same token, assumptions that men should be breadwinners and not caregivers have also not changed. The results are discriminatory for both women and men in different ways:

  • Mothers are less likely to be hired for jobs, to be perceived as competent at work, or to be paid as much as male colleagues with the same qualifications. They are seen as less stable than women with no children or men.
  • Because men with children are seen as more stable, they are more likely to be hired than childless men and are paid more. But men with children who want to take family leave or use flexible work arrangements to be caregivers receive worse job evaluations and lower hourly raises and are at greater risk of being laid off.
  • There is no legal protection for pregnant workers. A bill called the Pregnancy Workers Fairness Act, requiring employers to make “reasonable accommodation” for workers who become pregnant, does not have enough support in the US Congress to pass.
Five Tips for Preparing to Go on Maternity Leave Even with these difficulties, it is possible to balance motherhood and a career. Here are five tips to help you make the transition to maternity leave smoother for yourself and your employer:
  1. Tell your boss as soon after the first trimester as possible to allow time for planning.
  2. Know your legal rights, company policy, and the insurance benefits available to you for maternity/family leave.
  3. Think about your work calendar and begin planning early for big events or deliverables that will occur during your absence. Develop a detailed draft work plan for coverage of your responsibilities, and review this with your supervisor.
  4. Talk with your boss, or HR, about the available facilities for breast pumping so that you know whether breast-feeding is an option when you return.
  5. Determine the amount and type of contact you do or don’t want during your leave, and discuss this with your boss. Develop a communication plan for letting your colleagues and clients know who to communicate with while you are on leave.
How have you handled family planning and maternity leave in your career? Please share any ways you’ve found to overcome cultural perceptions about working mothers.]]>

Four Reasons We Need More Women in the Newsroom

  • 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?]]>

    When Is It Okay to Be Selfish at Work?

  • “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.]]>

    Have Relationships Changed for Younger Women?

                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?]]>

    Differences Make a Difference: The Intersection of Race and Gender

    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!]]>

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

    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.]]>