In many senses, discussions about gender diversity are boring. We have been talking about it for decades. Women are still grossly under represented in leadership positions across the country and they are discriminated against in terms of pay.
The research shows that diversity including gender diversity improves organisational performance. Societies that are more equal have significantly higher levels of well-being.
At the same time, billions of dollars have been spent in improving managerial leadership in organisations yet the quality of leadership is still poor. Bullying inside organisations is still common and employee engagement scores are stubbornly hard to move. Dissatisfaction in working in the corporate world has increased.
Leadership development programs tend to focus on self awareness and communication skills.
Yet, for women, the game is about mindset and confidence.
Women suffer terribly from being socialised as being ‘good girls’ when they were children and suffer significantly more from the “I’m not good enough” syndrome.
Men and women’s brains are wired differently and this difference is much more stark in younger children. Young girls have much greater abilities to concentrate and spend hours ‘colouring in’, drawing pictures and talking to each other. This enables them to sit still in the classroom and do the academic work easily. For this they get praise – heaps of it. They get approval from parents and teachers who are tearing their hair out trying to get boys to sit down and do some work. They internalise that they are ‘good girls’ when they do what others want and follow the rules and use their manners and they seek the praise that goes with it. They get addicted to praise.
Unfortunately, the spoils go to those who butt in, take what they need when they need it and ask for what they want. In the ‘real world’ with no teachers or parents around to heap praise and help ensure a level playing field, girls are seriously disadvantaged. They might do a better job, work harder and treat people better but those do not help them ‘win the game’;especially when they have to battle the unconscious bias of years of discrimination.
Most leadership development programs are targeted at the needs of men. Men have to learn some of the social skills that women already have.
Women need a very different leadership development program. Women need:
- Confidence
- The ability to shrug it off when things don’t go to plan
- To work out what they really want now that their parents and teachers are not around to heap praise on them just for being a ‘good girl’
- The ability to cope with conflict
- The ability to develop their own leadership style without resorting to coping men’s style
At the moment, I am working with a leadership team in the utilities industry. The leadership team comprises 1 women and 7 men – gender diversity still has a long way to go here. The woman needed help in managing conflict and her confidence. Not one man struggled with confidence or mentioned that they lacked confidence in the whole three months. The woman is the one that needed the least help in developing trust with her team.
So the diversity team need to be talking to the L&D team and develop a complementary leadership development program targeted especially at the needs of women.
And, yes, confidence can be learned! With the right tools and women’s greater propensity to learn, dramatic improvements can be made in not only women’s leadership performance but also her quality of life.
