The Fairer Sex? Enabling Female Leaders To Be Authentic In A World Of Greater Diversity, Equality And #Me Too

In honour of International Women’s Day we are delighted to share with you a fascinating essay on Women In Leadership from Meyler Campbell graduate Maria Darby-Walker.

THE FAIRER SEX? Enabling Female Leaders To Be Authentic In A World Of Greater Diversity, Equality And #Me Too

Maria Darby-Walker, Meyler Campbell Graduate

In recent times we’ve seen a call for greater diversity in Boardrooms with the percentage of women at the top of business still too low. Reflecting on the reasons behind this, I realised how few senior female role models I had during my early career. Having worked in banking, mining and aerospace, I observed that the other senior women around me tended to have softer skills – HR, Marketing, Communications; few ran business units or held senior leadership positions. The culture of the organisations was often male-centric, dominated by masculine culture and assumptions and not suitable for women wishing to advance their careers.

So, what about aspiring women leaders today? What barriers still exist and where might women be sabotaging themselves?

When we are young, we are deeply conditioned regarding how we respond to emotions and behaviours. Girls are expected to be caring and nurturing, boys to be strong and unemotional.  This bias remains into adulthood and presents a dilemma for potential women leaders, whether in business or politics. Is it possible to be simultaneously strong and empathetic¹? What about society’s expectations if women don’t appear empathetic? Are they judged differently, and do we have higher expectations of them? Coaching can help women navigate this minefield, play to their strengths and debunk some of the more negative gender stereotypes, thus enabling them to be better, more confident leaders and role models for future generations.

Empathy versus strength in leadership

As women climb the career ladder, it’s clear that they are judged differently to men; we expect to ‘like’ them and for them to be likeable. When women exert strength or authority, they are labelled as bossy or pushy; the same traits in men are viewed as assertive, authoritative, confident. Societal conditioning and unconscious bias mean we apply different measures to female managers, politicians and leaders.

This paradox is best highlighted by Colombia Business School; a case study² on a successful female entrepreneur was issued to students – 50/50 split men and women. In half the study she was called Heidi and in the other she was Howard; both male and female students decided that both Howard and Heidi were competent, but she was perceived as less likeable and more selfish. Howard on the other hand was respected and seen as more powerful.

We can clearly see a negative correlation and connotations for women between power and success whereas for men, the relationship is a positive one. Bruce Peltier³ says, “Organisations undeniably perceive and treat men and women differently. There are structural, cultural, social, intra- and interpersonal explanations for this and as coaches we need to be instrumental in helping both men and women and organisations understand this and help them evolve.”

With this backdrop, it’s perhaps not surprising that I’ve observed that the majority of my female coaching clients, no matter how successful, suffer from limiting beliefs or impostor syndrome and appear generally less confident and more self-critical than their male counterparts. Women often sabotage their own progress by taking a physical back seat⁴ at the table. They are less likely to apply for jobs when they don’t have all the qualifications – unlike men who are comfortable ‘blagging it’- and are less likely to ask for pay increases appearing to place less value on themselves.

Gender stereotyping in the workplace also makes it harder for women to find their way to the top. They are viewed as more intuitive, less analytical, less decisive and less likely to take risks – men on the other hand ‘do ‘and are therefore seen as action oriented.

Therese Huston⁵ examines these perceptions and debunks many of these myths and limiting beliefs; what she found, is that 60% of men and women were equally intuitive / analytical, and in 40% of the cases women were more analytical than men – the assumption being that women need to work harder to prove themselves so are more likely to gather facts before presenting their business case.

In this context, I believe that various coaching tools and methodologies can be an incredibly powerful resource for female leaders.

Making Recommendations around Non-Verbal Behaviour

We can see from the above, that women’s nonverbal behaviours can work against them just as much as verbal behaviour. As coaches we can give practical support, through observing and giving guidance around body language. As Amy Cuddy⁶ states: ‘Confidence is key to being successful’; she demonstrates how nonverbal expressions of power (space-occupying, open and expansive postures) can affect people’s hormone levels, behaviours, and feelings. She recommends ‘faking it until you make it’ and gives clear guidance on how to successfully manage stressful situations such as job interviews, dealing with conflict or giving presentations. Her rationale is that our mental wellbeing can affect our physical state, so our physical state could positively impact our minds. By adopting her techniques, we can help clients move from feeling powerless to feeling more confident, enabling them to better manage how they respond to stress and anxiety. We can help them dial up their confidence levels and, as women are less likely to self-promote, we can coach male business leaders to recognise this difference, ensuring women do not hold themselves back or deselect themselves from opportunities.

Managing Our Inner Chimp⁷

Following the 2008 financial crash, the concept of capitalism was turned on its head; it’s no longer acceptable for companies to pursue profit at any cost; society is now more focused on how leaders manage their business and make profit, with millennials in particular concerned about organisations’ purpose and impact on the planet. These areas of focus, one could argue, could play more to women’s perceived strengths. We all have an inner ‘chimp’ driving our emotional responses with male and female chimps being quite different; females tend to be more adept at reading the body language of their male counterparts for example – essential in the real jungle in order to survive. Emotional Intelligence as a leadership tool may therefore now be coming into its own, but we need to also demonstrate to women that our inner female chimp may hold us back through using apologetic language, appearing vulnerable or making ourselves physically smaller. Combining some of Amy Cuddy’s techniques along with helping clients to define their purpose – getting them to focus daily on what they are aiming to achieve helps nurture the ‘human’ part of our brain; this will help build resilience and confidence and minimise any kind of sabotaging chimp-like behaviour.

Embracing Positive Psychology⁸

Using Positive Psychology has been successful for many of my female clients. When people experience positive emotions their minds broaden, and they open up to new possibilities; we are programmed evolution wise to fear the worst so training ourselves to experience positive emotion leads to states of mind and modes of behaviour that can indirectly prepare us for later hard times.

In one example, a client reframed how she viewed the world through recognising her strengths. She constantly told herself she wasn’t good enough and worried what people thought of her. We undertook an analysis of her strengths⁹ which included ‘Kindness, Social Intelligence, Honesty, Leadership’ and her immediate default position was to view these as weaknesses. Using positive psychology, we helped her to recognise how she uses her strengths in the workplace to successfully resolve conflict and difficult situations. Helping her to regularly reflect on her strengths and encouraging her to use them as a daily resource at work has helped to build her resilience, wellbeing and confidence. She also now uses a daily gratification journal which has helped to define her purpose and there has been a subsequent fundamental shift in her outlook, attaining her goals and remaining focused and positive.

Understanding the Organisational Context

It’s evident that women are as ambitious as men, but invisible barriers within their organisations impede their progress. Our role is to help them identify these informal barriers – where troop¹⁰ (chimp-like) behaviour exists for example – and to help women understand the prism through which they may be viewed or judged. We can help put our clients in other people’s shoes with pay negotiations, job promotions and when managing conflict, and we can coach them around body language and tone of voice to ensure they are heard once they reach the Boardroom.

Conclusion

As coaches we can persuade business leaders to take a close look at their unconscious biases and how they may be unwittingly excluding talent from their top teams; changing this approach will be key in changing organisations’ and society’s attitudes to female leadership. Society’s views on female leaders are changing, but slowly. Bias and stereotypes still exist but there is at least now a demand for leaders to be not just strong and powerful but to show vulnerability and humility and to be more collaborative and inclusive; this may play more to women’s natural strengths but again balance is needed –  we applaud men who are ‘ in touch with their emotions’ but criticise women as being ‘too emotional’ so balancing empathy and strength remains key.

Whilst it’s good to embrace difference, there is a commercial imperative also. As Bruce Peltier¹¹ says, “there is clear, plausible and empirical data that demonstrates that companies with greater gender diversity perform better, specifically if there are three or more women in leadership positions.”  Enabling women business leaders to succeed whilst remaining authentic is good news for all business leaders alike, along with educating men to recognise the biases and assumptions that hold women back; leadership coaching, I believe, can play an integral part in making this happen.

Bibliography

¹  Harvard Business Review. “Connect then Lead.” (July-August 2013). To exert influence, you must balance competence with warmth.

²  Flynn, Professor Frank. “Women and the Leadership Labyrinth – Howard v Heidi.” Leadership Psychology Institute. Ed. Colombia Business School Case Study. n.d.

³  Peltier, Bruce. The Psychology of Executive Coaching. n.d. Chapter 13 Coaching Women. p259.

⁴  Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO. “Lean In.” (n.d.).

⁵  Huston, Therese. How Women Decide. n.d. Chapter 1 – Making Sense of Women’s Intuition.

⁶  Cuddy, Professor Amy. “Ted Talk.” Your body language may shape who you are. October 2012.

⁷  Peters, Professor Steve. The Chimp Paradox. n.d. The Mind Management Programme for Confidence, Success and Happiness; Chapter 2 The Divided Planet; Specifics of Male and Female Chimps.

⁸  Fredrickson, Barbara L. Positive Psychology. American Scientist, n.d. The Value of Positive Emotions: Volume 91.

⁹  VIA Strengths. n.d.

¹⁰ Peters, Professor Steve. The Chimp Paradox. n.d. Chapter 8, The Troop Moon.

¹¹ Peltier, Bruce. The Psychology of Executive Coaching. Chapter 13, Coaching Women; p259/260

Biography

Maria Darby-Walker runs a portfolio career as a Non-Executive Director and Coach; prior to this she spent most of her career as a Marketing and Communications expert advising some of the world’s largest companies on brand and reputation management. She has a strong interest in coaching executives on how to get to the Boardroom and in mentoring women in traditionally male dominated environments such as financial services, engineering. oil and gas and mining.