As I watched Emma Watson give her emotional speech on
feminism and gender equality for the HeForShe campaign, I was impressed. Who
thought that Hermione Granger could deliver such a passionate plea for female rights?
Later in the week KPN announced that they would end their
program to favor women for senior appointments. Jasper Rynders, one of the
directors at KPN, said that he was disappointed in the women as their behavior
and competencies were very similar to the men already in place, including their
downsides.
Thank god there was Martine Van Den Poel, Coaching practice
director at Insead! She gave an enlightening presentation on the difference
between male and female leadership during a ‘Straffe madammen’-lunch (there is
no English translation for this, but the definition of ‘straffe madam’ may
help: female who has done extra-ordinary things – it is a network for ‘cool’
female professionals).
Although typical female attributes, such as emotional
intelligence, are behaviors that become increasingly important while climbing
the corporate ladder, very few women actually make to the top.
As I pro-actively search for women for one of my clients, I
meet talented ladies every week. How come that some of them settle for a second
in command position at a certain point in their career? Are we building our own
glass ceiling?
First of all, men and women have a different motivation to
lead. Whereas for men, leading holds a fun factor, women experience a conflict
between their gender role and the leader role.
It seems like the desire to gain power has a negative feel
to it.
Also, our search for harmonious relationships makes us feel uncomfortable
when engaging into more conflictuous situations. We don’t dare to ask what we
want for the fear of being called ‘a bitch’.
Secondly, women rely primarily on their competency to move
up the corporate ladder. How many times do we think that our hard work will pay
off in the end? Time for networking, relationship building is often lost in our
quest to be perfect.
There should be ways to start using some of the more
male-oriented skills to show what we can do.
But as the example at KPN has shown, it is imperative that
we safeguard our female strengths and do not become a shadow of a man.
But how can we do this?
There seems to be a lack of female role models from whom we
can learn.
A number of multinationals have created networks of women
within the organization so they can learn from each other. At my client, male
senior executives mentor talented females.
Could that be the way?
So here is my call to action! Talented women of the world,
bring your confidence level to your competence level with female flair…and for
the men…advocate with us as gender is a spectrum instead of two sets of
opposing ideals.
Let me know any tips you may have!
I look forward to hearing from you,
Isabel
