When a little boy asserts himself
he is called a leader. Yet when a little girl does the same she risks being
branded “bossy”.
Ban Bossy Campaign
Labels – they are all around us.
I went to a girl’s school and college. I did not have teachers preferring boys
who raised their hand over me. I did not grow up in a system that told me I
needed to be a certain way to find acceptance. However, this opened me to a big
shock when I went to professional business school later in life where there
were 110 boys and 5 girls. I was banned by the batch because I dared to ask a
boy to ‘be quiet’ in the heat of a severe debate on the grading system. Lo and
behold I did not have any takers for team assignments. People would not look me
in the eye and I was pretty much left to stew on my own. I was naïve enough to
not understand what was happening to me until a helpful friend came and told me
that his group really wanted me on their team but they were scared I would be
too demanding and intimidating. That label has stuck with me through my working
life. Demanding. Intimidating. The labels that are attached to women who speak
up.
A lot of our stereotyping around
gender comes from how we are socialized around what are feminine traits and
what are accepted masculine traits. In his path breaking book “Masculine and
Feminine – The Natural Flow of Opposites in the Psyche”, Garreth Hill posits
that masculine and feminine patterns exist in all of our personalities. He
talks about 4 basic patterns that are revealed in behaviour, motivation, dreams
etc. They operate in family and social systems and underpin basic cultural
patterns that we find around us. They are
1. Static
feminine: This patterns is bout nurturing and caring and providing stability to
others with warmth and affection. It finds its central expression in the family
or kinship situations. This pattern is the underpinning of matrivalent
cultures. eg: The Mother Goddess
archetype
2. Dynamic
masculine: This pattern is about driving ambitious, goal oriented behaviour. It
is about the initiative to dream big and achieve audacious goals eg: The Dragon
Slayer archetype
3. Static
masculine: this is the tendency to create systems of order. It is expressed by
laying out hierarchical social order and setting up systems and processes. This pattern is the underpinning of
patrivalent cultures. eg: Justice of the Supreme Court archetype
4. Dynamic
feminine: This pattern is about the playful movement towards the new and the
untested. It is about being vital and responsive to change. Eg: The rebellious
and mischievous trickster archetype
The critical point that Hill
makes is that these patterns, while being termed as masculine or feminine, exist
in varying degrees in all of us. The pre-dominance of any one pattern shapes a
culture and socialises the people within the culture to find one pattern more
acceptable in a gender than the other. A lot of our leadership archetypes are
governed by the dynamic and static masculine. This is what gives rise to the
‘Think Leader Think Male’ conundrum. In an essentially patrivalent organization
or culture, women who lead using a
dynamic or static masculine philosophy open themselves to being labelled and
categorised as difficult, demanding and un-ladylike. Similarly men who project a pre-dominance of
the static or dynamic feminine patterns are deemed ‘unambitious’ and ‘unmanly’
and passed over from leadership roles.
In day to day interactions, we hold the stereotype that women are warm
and personable individuals emerging from the static feminine pattern. Small
unconscious day to day habits by both men and women attenuate the perception
that women are less competent and less confident. For example research states
that women are more likely to use ‘apologetic’ language – e.g. “Just…”, “Does
this make sense?”, “Sorry” and are more likely to be interrupted compared to
men.
In addition to this there is a commonly held belief that women must be ‘likeable’
to be influential. The need for this is not felt that much by men where in
aggression is a much lauded trait as it feels congruent with the dynamic
masculine archetype. Hence, when women speak more assertively or state their
opinion in a non-apologetic manner like Anita, they are perceived as being
angry, less agreeable and forceful. Also given that women are perceived to be
the more emotional sex, anger in them is perceived to be a personality trait.
Whereas similar behaviour in men is seen as having situational causes i.e, the
situation warrants them to be angry.
Anger is specifically an emotion
that is thought to be more congruent with the male stereotype than female stereotype.
This is again backed by research wherein women tend to receive more favourable
evaluations when they exhibit behaviour that conveys referent power
(relationship-dependent: warmth, agreeableness). When they exhibit anger, they
show a threat to managerial resources (specifically personal resources – liking
or approval). Hence, in spite of experience, competency and leadership traits
backing her, what Anita experienced in her system were ‘Backlash effects”. Given
that she defied the stereotypical traits related to women in the workplace, she
was seen as being lower on leader effectiveness and hence perceived to have a
lower status and leader competency than her more agreeable peers. It does not
help that women are equally harsh, if not harsher, on other females who are
‘angry’ or present themselves any less warm or personable as they go against
the feminine archetypes that women are socialised into aligning with.
As we start to grow more
sophisticated in our understanding of what it takes to have successful women
leaders in the world, the one thing that is spoken really less about is the
power of labels and stereotypes and the impact they can have on the careers of
women who want to be different from the expected norm. At YSC, we support
female leaders in a number of ways. First, we provide executive coaching to
women at mid and senior levels to help them understand both their own
assumptions and mental models and those of the culture and context they are
working. Second, given that all change needs to happen at the systemic level to
be sustainable, we run female leadership development programs. These ensure
that while women undergo their own development to reach leadership positions,
we are also working with the eco system of the women by impacting sponsors,
line managers and key stakeholders through unconscious bias awareness
Some critical coaching tips we
provide to Anita and other women who face issues with labelling to help fight
the inherent bias that may exist about women and agreeability are:
·
Building greater trust in relationships and with
key stakeholders to buffer the negative effect of being assertive
·
Be aware of one’s interpersonal impact and use relationship
inclusive language. For example instead of saying ”I think …..” reframe the
statement by including the other person and their thoughts and start with “what
do you think about …. And its impact on ….”
·
Be mindful of the tone and pitch of one’s voice,
especially when one is angry about something. Women tend to use thin and high
pitch voices when they are trying to project an opinion loudly which is the
opposite of an authoritative voice.
·
Framing
o
Behavioural: “I’m going to express my opinion very
directly. I’ll be as specific as possible”. This shows that that individuals
are in control
o
Value: “I see this as a matter of honesty and
integrity, so it’s important for me to be clear about where I stand”. This
justifies forcefulness, and makes it a virtue
o
Framing possible biases: “I know it’s a risk for a woman to speak this
assertively, but I’m going to express my opinion very directly”. This primes
the observers to the possibility that they can be biased against her. This
needs to be used carefully so that the woman is not perceived to be playing the
gender card repeatedly
Women have conquered several
bastions and proven themselves as worthy leaders, the climb is still uphill and
the numbers are still not there. While many mechanisms are put in place to bring
the numbers up, the one that is paid the least focus is assumptions and unspoken
biases that exist about what is expected from men and women in the workplace. We
need to understand that several organizations follow a patrivalent underpinning
to their culture and it is critical to recognize the inherent biases about the
feminine that can be prevalent in such cultures. We have heard many stories of
leaders wanting to up the numbers of women but feeling uncomfortable when they
encounter a women who is tough, outspoken and assertive. It is time we start
thinking about the impact some of these deeply held beliefs on how men and
women need to be in the workplace to be accepted by others and the role they
play in selecting and developing leaders. Hence, certain things organizations
can do to ensure there are not impacted by the insidious power of labels
·
Look at competency frames and leadership
language in the organization and ensure they are gender neutral
·
Be aware and normalise unconscious biases in the
system about acceptable leadership behaviour and plausible gender effects by
talking about them openly
·
Work with Line Managers to help them understand
their own unconscious leanings towards leaders - whether male or female with
specific personality traits and how this impacts the talent that is being
recruited and developed in the organization
·
Creating a psychologically safe environment in
talent review sessions through neutral observers who can call out the use of stereotypes
and labels while taking critical career decisions about people.
Equality in its truest sense can
only be achieved if we are ready to be aware of what is unconscious within us
and question the socializations that our cultures have put us through. It is
through the questioning of this and through active dialogue and a mindful
awareness of how stereotypes and biases are impacting the growth of leaders
that organizations can truly evolve to be inclusive and use the power of
diversity for the common good.
