The theme of International Women’s Day this year was #EmbraceEquity.
Equity is about giving equal opportunity. According to the dictionary:
equity
noun
the quality of being fair and impartial.
We often think being fair is treating everyone the same. However, when we look at it from the point of view of “Equal opportunity”, you can’t apply the same rule to all. A bit like a handicap in sports.
Handicap in sports is defined as
“method of offsetting the varying abilities or characteristics of competitors in order to equalize their chances of winning”
And yet when it comes to women at work, we construct the same rules for them, as we use for men. And we call it being fair. And we scratch our heads that despite the efforts being made towards diversity and inclusion, women are still lagging behind.
Let’s ask ourselves the question – have we truly provided the women in our workforce an equal chance of winning?
Fact of the matter is that women continue being the primary carer in the family. We cannot fight nature – women are the ones who get pregnant – there isn’t another option, because technology to create pregnant men has not been invented yet.
So it was a fascinating discussion I was witness to recently, on maternity leave. The discussion centred around cost and benefit of women employees – specially when they fall pregnant.
And then I came across a post on Linked In, where someone had written about their experience of maternity leave and issues related with coming back as a working mother with a young child at home. The comments on that post re-iterated the gap still to be covered in embracing equity.
A woman’s world is a complex mesh of responsibilities and expectations. A world, where she was not taught to fail successfully. A woman will try to be a perfect home builder and a perfect employee. The employer rulebook was created in the days when majority of the women were homemakers and men focused on fancy careers. We have been tweaking the rule book since, to accommodate the career women of today. So in reality, the rulebook is still from the male point of view.
Let’s look at the female point of view:
1. We are intended by nature to be carers and nurturers. We are given the natural instinct to protect and grow our young ones
2. We are used to complexity – we are natural parallel processors – try packing school lunch while getting ready for work, while cajoling your young one to eat breakfast, while working out the quickest route to work to beat traffic
3. We are very experienced in managing conflict – seriously watch us manage our toddlers through to our teenagers!
4. We have excellent time management skills – how else can we manage to get to pick up our children from after school care before copping the late fine?
5. We have excellent negotiation skills – try surviving in a household of conflicting priorities
6. We know how to work smarter, so we can get more done in less time without impacting quality – we survived all of the above – surely that is proof enough?
I have led many teams where I had women as my direct reports. In my experience, when I was able to show my female team members their excellent management and leadership skills by reframing their skills from the context of their home to the work context, they shined – they became an invaluable asset to my team.
In my career I have been fortunate to have run my teams according to my own rulebook. Flexibility was one such rule I used a lot. My team always had full flexibility of how they wanted to deliver their outcomes – whether they work 9 to 5 or 8 to 6 or … whether they worked from home or on-prem – my only ask was:
- Deliver the outcome you are accountable for, in the timeframe you have agreed to
- Be present for your team when they need you
Why did this work for me? It worked because I took away the stress of my team members having to juggle expectations. When they were at work, they were fully present because they had been given the opportunity to organise whatever they needed to in their family life. They responded to the trust that was placed in them.
When you sit in forums led by men, brainstorming how to improve women’s participation in the workforce, you realise how ill-equipped the men are to understand the complexity of our world.
Men look at it sequentially, generally from a dollar perspective. It is time to completely trash the old rulebook and start from scratch, taking into consideration, not just the male point of view but also the complexity of the female world. The barriers women face are multi-fold
1. The first hidden barrier is we – ourselves! By trying to ‘perfectly’ juggle everything, we become a stressful mess!
Rulebook hint: Leaders can create work environments which are built on empathy, where employees feel supported enough to bring their best – rather than wasting energy on stress.
2. Gender bias – enough has been said and written on this. Today the risk is different – are we hiring a female because it helps us tick the diversity box? Or is she truly the right fit?
Rulebook hint: Leaders need to be honest with the skills they are looking for, and hire for those skills. Keep aside your own unconscious bias. Also, evaluate it holistically – consider the human, i.e., soft skills she may have learnt naturally?
3. Lack of mentorship and sponsorship – are we waiting for women to ask for it? Most women continue to suffer from the imposter syndrome.
Rulebook hint: Leaders can be more proactive in identifying potential in their staff and nurture it.
4. The famed glass ceiling – refer point 3 above!!
5. Other unconscious biases – refer point 2 above!!
Today the need is for effective leaders who understand natural talent. They are masters at motivating their employees and enabling them to deliver excellence.
The need is for leaders who understand emotional intelligence and know that one size does not fit all! To create equal opportunity, one has to take into consideration individual circumstances and create an equal playing field – remember handicap in sports.
In effect the need is for leaders who are proficient coaches – leaders who realise that it is them who hold the key to enabling their talent into becoming high performing talent!
And in reality – this new rulebook will suit men equally as it would women because it will be written for humans!
#successculture #leadership #womenhelpingwomen #iwd #iwd2023