If you’re looking around, noticing that leadership seems to be made up of one type of person, you’re not imagining things. In fact, one of the previous Women In The Workplace Reports by McKinsey and Lean In noted that white men are the only group that is overrepresented in leadership.
I read that a few years ago and have never stopped thinking about it.
Not because I didn’t already see it – believe me, I’ve lived it! But just to hear it laid out so plainly… There is only one group that is overrepresented, and we know it.
The truth is, women struggle to get promoted at the same rates as our male counterparts at every level of leadership, and this just perpetuates the problem. When you have fewer women promoted into that first manager position, the pool of women to be promoted to director is that much smaller, and then there are even fewer to be selected as VPs and so on…
This is a topic I care deeply about, so in today’s newsletter I want to get into it. Why women are getting stuck in middle management, why we can’t wait for the ‘system’ to fix this, and what we can do about it.
Let’s dive in…
Why are so many women getting stuck?
The transition from middle manager to senior leader is a tough one for most people, but the hard truth is that I do see women get stuck here more than men. Let’s look at the reasons why:
Bias
Bias is sadly alive and well. If we believe that men and women are truly equal in terms of talent, there is no other real explanation for the huge gender gap that we see in senior leadership. I think it’s important to spread awareness, but if you’ve followed me for a while, you know I don’t like to spend a ton of time dwelling here since it’s not something we can control. At the same time, it would also be silly to pretend it doesn’t exist.
Systems
I often say that leadership was created by and for white men with stay-at-home wives. The systems we work in can feel unsupportive, especially to working mothers – from the hours we’re expected to be in the office to the fact that we need to advocate for ourselves. Nuff said.
Conditioning
Many of us were raised to be humble, work hard with our heads down and not rock the boat. This makes advocating for our ideas and career progression extremely uncomfortable. Not only that, but that same conditioning can impact the way others see us – expecting us to be nurturing and selfless. It’s complicated and may require some unpacking, but it’s absolutely something we can navigate. And this is part of what I love to teach women to fix.
Past experience
Early in your career, being the best executor on the team, going above and beyond with extra work and projects, and working 10x harder than anyone else probably got you promoted. The problem is that these same behaviours will keep you stuck in middle management and hold you back from becoming an exec. Tough pattern to break, but if you can, you can get to the next level. This is part of what I help women to turn around when we work together.
What about “Fix the system, not the women?”
If you’ve heard this said, you probably nodded enthusiastically in agreement. Women are not the problem here! We’re not broken – why should we have to fix ourselves or bend over backwards to survive in a broken system?
I get it. I feel the same way. And I also think that if you’re waiting for someone to ‘fix the system,’ you’re going to be waiting a very long time. Because guess what? I don’t see anyone taking responsibility for this project and have yet to see a Gantt chart outlining the timeline… It’s up to us.
The challenge is that the same people who will benefit from this change are currently powerless to create it.
Which is why I believe that the only real way to fix things is to create a critical mass of women in the C-suite who can make these changes from the top. And there’s data to support this – when there are more women at the board level and C-suite, there is also less biased language observed in an organization, and a higher percentage of women on the leadership team.
And that’s exactly why I’m so passionate about getting women to the exec table.
So what can you do about this?
If you’ve been working your tail off, checking every box and doing everything ‘right’, and still being passed over, you may be wondering what on earth you can start doing differently.
What I’ve seen with the women I work with is that you’re almost always already ready for the next level. You’re probably already skilled enough, strategic enough, and experienced enough to operate in the role you really want to be in. The key thing you need to start focusing on is demonstrating that to the people around you.
If you saw yourself in the person I described above – working harder than everyone else and stuck in execution mode – this may be impacting your ability to get to the next level. That’s not to say that it’s all your fault, because as I shared, there are multiple factors that we are working against, but it is one of the things in your control.
The key is to be open to learning a new way of doing things. To be willing to take action and change the way you’re showing up. To get out of your comfort zone.
I’m actually very optimistic about the future of leadership when it comes to women, because I see women breaking through to those senior-level roles every week! I’m excited for the day that programs like mine won’t even need to exist, but in the meantime, I’m confident that we’ll continue to chip away at this problem until we create that critical mass…
If you’re in a director or senior director role now, come to my free masterclass on Sept 8th, all about what’s holding you back from that VP role and where you need to focus to finally break through.
Grab your spot below
Until next time friends… ✌️💜
Katy
