The work I love most in my schedule is always the work I do with women. It’s not just seeing amazing women reach their potential, but the impact this has on the world in the process when more of us can own our space and share our gifts with the world.
We’ve come a long way, however the data is still lagging. Whilst many organisations have made an effort to get more women and under-represented groups around leadership tables, they’re not always supported when they get there. The environment you step into as the only woman or other minority, can make the job so much harder.
I’m big on fixing the system first and getting our leaders (who have the influence and the majority of whom are still male) to do their part in this mahi. In the meantime though, it’s essential we support our women and under-represented groups to thrive. It’s not good enough just to have diversity in these roles, we need to ensure we retain people in them and that they can feel like they belong. Otherwise they will not be able to bring their best and may end up leaving altogether.
Women still face stronger headwinds at work. Often shouldering more of the mental load at home as well as being more likely to get talked over, mistaken for someone more junior or have their ideas taken by other teams’ members. It’s no wonder we experience things like imposter syndrome and burnout at higher rates than our male counterparts.
It’s for these reasons my Women in Leadership programme PowHer exists. It helps women and under-represented groups own their space, lead with confidence and navigate systems that contain these headwinds and are still different because of how they look and sound. To leverage the power we have as leaders and show up fully human, as ourselves and with confidence to leverage our unique skillset and the experience we bring.
It’s been my experience doing this work over the last decade that so often women feel the need to change something about themselves to fit in. To be more masculine to succeed as a leader. They doubt themselves and second guess their ideas resulting in holding back innovation and creativity. They don’t always feel they have permission to challenge those in positions of power, even when that challenge might be best for the business. This isn’t due to the fault of these women or their skillset, it’s a product of the society they’ve grown up in and centuries of baggage we carry about a woman’s role, expectations and knowing our place. It hinders our progress and mean we can’t bring our whole selves to work and allow the organisation to benefit from that increased impact.
It’s my hope one day that we don’t need to talk about gender or other intersectionalities when we talk leadership, but for now we know that leadership is different if you identify as a woman or non-binary. It’s for this reason we need a different approach. A space to share our experience and learn how to navigate some of these challenges that come with leadership, purely because of how we were born and the world we were born into.
We don’t need to qualify the business case behind this, we’ve known it for years, but we also now know that women are making the majority of purchasing decisions, increasing in wealth and influence. Your client base is no doubt full of women, as is your community. If women are not represented equally on your leadership team, you’re missing out on a massive opportunity to better understand and relate to your customers, and we know the impact that has on the bottom line.
I love working in house with organisations to codesign this programme to make an impact and have really enjoyed doing so this year with Foodstuffs, Hato Hone St John and Trade Me. If you’d like to join these amazing organisations in this mahi, let’s chat about what might work for your organisation.