That’s a direct quote from one of the owner’s of a natural foods store I worked at for over two years when I was in high school. They loved me there at Mother Nature’s (seriously). I was promoted to Weekend Manager before I could drive…I used to ride my bike to work. The owner—part of the trio of owner brothers who were sitcom-character worthy—was commenting specifically on how well I washed the dishes. He was not a particularly enlightened man. But, then again, neither was the law firm managing partner who introduced my wife—a highly-successful, knock ‘em dead litigator—to clients as, “the best looking partner in the DC office." I’ve experienced and observed genial sexism for many years. It’s long past time for this behavior not only to stop but to be reversed by an ongoing, active effort to diversify our leadership ranks—especially in terms of encouraging women to pursue opportunities to grow and move up, embrace differences in styles, and celebrate the success from which we all benefit.
Having more women in leadership roles is proven to be good for business, literally and qualitatively. In Fortune 500 companies, the firms with the most female board members outperform those with the least by 26% on return on invested capital and 16% return on sales. Yet only 5% of Fortune 500 CEO’s are women and only 17% of their board members are. I commend all readers to the Joanne Lipman’s Wall Street Journal article, Women at Work: A Guide for Men for more data and greater detail about how to battle this long-standing issue.
Maybe I’m more sensitive to or less tolerant of the foolishness that leads to limited opportunities for reasons ranging from having been the parent who made some career choices to ensure that our kids had a parent at home at a consistent time every night to having the gratifying but challenging experience of coaching many women navigating their way toward leadership roles in spite of the obstacles that many people deny still exist. Diversity in leadership is essential and attainable—but it requires a concerted effort at least from the very beginning of someone’s entry into one’s organization. Things don’t change unless we make them. This is a fight we all have to join. In fact, when we separate efforts like this from the mainstream, we feed the very bias that we’re seeking to disperse. Many companies have started to get this. They form organizations like Towers Watson’s Women’s Network and Their Supporters (of which I was a proud member). In a slightly ironic twist, the Washington, DC, Women’s Bar Association authored a guide for law firms to reverse the woeful lack of female partners and leaders that emphasized the need for senior male partners to be involved in the development of women, and some of the leading talent development organizations have urged overall development not this group and that group development programs.
That said, there are some tendencies—among women and men—that, when noted, need to be addressed. Ms. Lipman captures some of these in her article, including the phenomenon of women believing that they have to be 100% qualified for a promotion before seeking it and many men needing to feel, shall we say, much less qualified before doing the same. There are all kinds of folks with all kinds of mindsets. We should value them, seek them out, encourage them, give them room to grow. When we do, we finally can achieve greater gender and other parity in our leadership ranks. Here are some ideas to get you started in supporting the greater success of your organization:
• Be a mentor—Don’t wait to be asked, volunteer. Take someone to lunch, have coffee, find out what interests them. Listen to their ideas and look for ways to support their inclusion, development, and success. It might be as simple as helping to trouble shoot a proposal or review a memo…or suggest a resource they may call on for specific guidance. There’s no great mystery to being a mentor, just a mindset that includes your being there to help someone else to learn, grow, and contribute.
• Use your eyes—If you do only one thing to help foster the inclusion and development of your colleagues it should be to use your eyes in as many meetings as you can. Watch the people who aren’t contributing—many of whom are signaling they’d like to but just can break in because others aren’t watching or listening, much less seeking them out. If you do and play traffic cop, you’ll be amazed at the awesome ideas and potential that reside in the room. Plus, you’ll be their hero.
• Don’t take “no” for an answer—One of the biggest obstacles to growth and success for women is a lack of confidence that sometimes presents itself as all the reasons why she can’t or won’t pursue something for now or take on a colleague, etc. If you believe in this person, help them find a way forward, maybe now, maybe later—but at a specific time. More often than not, if you gain agreement that it’s a 'when' not an 'if' situation, the timing will accelerate. Once this barrier is crossed successfully, the momentum of confidence kicks in making the next time an easier sell.
• Hear something, say something—Our societal tilt towards political correctness has created a bit of a backlash or at least a caution when it comes to calling out our colleagues when they say or do things that simply are not correct, however innocuous a term of action may seem or well-intentioned it may be. Women are not 'girls,' all professionals need to receive feedback even if we’re afraid they may cry; and we’re neither from Venus or Mars, we’re all from here on Earth. That doesn’t make us, any of us, the same; and, the sooner we get that, the sooner we’ll see lots of different faces around the table and fully contributing at the table.
You’d have to ask my wife how good of a partner I’ve been so far…but I’m very confident the dishes are really clean!
Jeff Lesher, Principal at entreQuest, blends his deep knowledge of organization design, human capital, and leadership with a pragmatic approach drawn from his own business experience and eQ's philosophy to help eQ's clients focus on their core purpose and move people effectively to action.