In this new column, commissioned as part of Coaching at Work’s Campaign for Gender Equality, Nicole Berg puts gender balance under the spotlight, and continues the rich, complex dialogue we tapped into in our Shaping the Future survey.
This issue: Embracing both ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ qualities
By Nicole Berg
The numbers are all around us and they point to a problem that is undeniable. In the workplace, women hold 51 per cent of non-management roles, but only 21 per cent of executive positions (CEB, 2015).
A recent survey of more than 1,000 mid- to senior-level women indicated that 78 per cent of those polled were considering leaving to start their own business (Aspire Women, 2014).
Alongside the moral imperative, there is an irrefutable business case for more women in leadership, board positions and workforces. Study after study indicates that increasing the number of women at all levels improves financial performance, better reflects the marketplace, builds reputation and increases innovation and group performance. For example, see McKinsey & Co (2007).
So why are women failing to make it to, and stay at, ‘the top’, and how do we move forward?
Days before my 25th birthday, I landed my dream job: managing a city’s emergency shelter and crisis line for abused women. It’s perhaps not everyone’s dream job and I, too, had my reservations, mainly around the emotionally taxing nature of the job. (Turns out, with the proper reframe and a highly supportive culture, it was everything I’d hoped for.)
The other reservation I had – and I’m sure I’m not the only one – was the fact that I was new to the city, the sector, and the organisation. I was overseeing its largest staff team – and I was younger than all but one of them.
Learning curve
I was keenly aware that I had a lot to learn, and I believe it was this knowledge, coupled with past workplace experiences, that led the executive director to speak with me a month into my role. We sat down and she asked me how I thought it was going. I gave a wishy-washy non-answer (you all know what I mean; you’ve either heard it or done it yourselves). Obviously, if she was asking the question, she didn’t think everything was rainbows and butterflies, but I wasn’t about to start calling attention to my own incompetencies.
Of all the things she might have said, she (gently) called me out on something I didn’t realise actually was a problem: my lack of vulnerability.
American folk singer Ani DiFranco describes it best: “I say what I have to, and I hold back the rest.”
My boss was right: I did do this. And I still do, if I’m honest, though now to a lesser degree. I had come from workplace cultures where this was the ‘done thing’, yet I was now negatively impacting a healthier culture. The supportive atmosphere at the shelter was so valuable because employees needed support (don’t we all?), and were open to it. I couldn’t receive or give support if I wasn’t able to face vulnerability.
Social construct
What does this have to do with gender balance? Gerzema and D’Antonio (2013) carried out a fascinating cross-cultural study, described in their book The Athena Doctrine. Seeking to understand masculinity and femininity in a measurable way, they had 32,000 people in 25 countries classify 200 traits as ‘masculine’, ‘feminine’ or ‘neutral’. It’s important to note, as the researchers do, that masculine qualities are not confined to a Y chromosome, nor are feminine qualities found only in women. Gender – the masculine and the feminine – is a social construct associated with the sexes by perception and norms, not by genetics. And at the heart of gender balance is the need to permit greater fluidity of these norms.
The results of this classification are unsurprising. Masculine qualities include: strong, decisive, ambitious, aggressive, daring, competitive, assertive, direct, career-orientated, confident, logical, independent. Feminine qualities include: trustworthy, reasonable, adaptable, plans for the future, imaginative, humble, conscientious, patient, passionate, intuitive, inclusive, balanced, emotional, passive, family-orientated, loving. And, yes, vulnerable – the very quality I had been implicitly and explicitly warned to suppress prior to landing that dream job.
Vulnerability wasn’t the only taboo quality I avoided, nor am I the only one who has felt pressure to do so. Social norms shape our behaviour – this is the essence of culture. Our workplace cultures, in particular, shape and define women and men in specific – generally, masculine – ways. However, individuals also shape culture. Armed with this knowledge, gender balance begins with you and me; we can be the change we wish to see in the world, as in the quote attributed to Mahatma Gandhi.
Healthy balance
Gender diversity is making headlines, and our cultures are ripe for change. I don’t propose we throw out the baby with the bath water – masculine qualities have been, and always will be, needed. What we really need is a healthy balance of masculine and feminine, men and women.
The first step down the road to gender balance is to acknowledge that it is not women who are not permitted into the upper echelons of business per se, but feminine qualities – which are, as it so happens, personified by women.
Think about the successful women you know at the top of their fields. Which traits do they exhibit? Which do they hide? What about the men at the top of their fields? Chances are, your checklist is looking highly masculine.
As a coach or mentor, what can you do? A significant part of the solution will lie in permitting and accepting feminine (and masculine) qualities in our clients, and in ourselves, which allow us to permit and encourage them in others. This will affect culture.
Are you like me? Do you shy away from vulnerability when a situation calls for it? What else do you avoid? Are you living and working in a full range of masculine and feminine energy?
Notice how your clients expand fully into these powerful elements – or hold back. Do your clients move along this spectrum, from masculine to feminine and back, with agility?
As many readers of this magazine pointed out in the 2015 Shaping the Future survey, there are a number of internal and external barriers to expanding into the feminine, to women, and even into healthy masculinity in the workplace.
We’ll begin to address these in subsequent columns.
Next issue: Gender conditioning and the roles that we play today
References
- Aspire Women, The Great Female Corporate Quit, Special Report 2014
- CEB, Four Imperatives to Increase the Representation of Women in Leadership Positions, 2015
- J Gerzema and M D’Antonio, The Athena Doctrine: How Women (and the Men Who Think Like Them) Will Rule the Future. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2013
- McKinsey & Company, Women Matter: A Corporate Performance Driver, 2007
- ‘Shaping the Future’ survey, Coaching at Work, 10 (5), 2015
Join the conversation
Is it important to embrace both ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ qualities? How do we coach for that?
Have your say. Go to: http://bit.ly/1PPrhRR