We can do it

Whether consciously or unconsciously, people use words to make men more powerful and women more subordinate, subtly making a difference in their lives and careers.

Gail Evans, former executive vice president of the CNN Newsgroup, gave the example of recommendations for employees. She said typically, for women, words such as hard-working, intelligent, dedicated, and nice were used. Meanwhile, for men, the words most used were ambitious, strategic, and leadership potential. “Who do you think gets the job?” she asked.

“The truth is the reason smart or intelligent is on the list for women is that we have gender schemas in our society. And one of the predominant gender schemas we have with regard to work is that men are competent until they are proven incompetent, and women are incompetent until they prove their competence.”

However she noted, in the personal world, in the household, the gender schema is the opposite.

In addition, she said in job performance reviews, people tend to use verbs for men, while women get nouns and adjectives. “Men get plans about how to get to the next rung that they want to be on the ladder. Women get more personal feedback about how they are acting, interacting and all the rest.”

Evans pointed out the difference while giving the feature address at the Arthur Lok Jack Global School of Business’ 2018 Women in Leadership Conference, titled Kick Some Glass, at the Hyatt Regency on September 19.

She said these types of discrepancies lead to women playing “a solo game.” They believe if they try harder or do more, things will happen for them. The result are usually that, if one woman gets ahead in a position, there are no other women coming up behind her.

“I think we’ve reached the point where we need to move from playing a solo game to understanding that the way in which things begin to change is to go from ‘I can do it’ to ‘We can do it'.”

She believes part of a woman’s role is to support other women and to help them move ahead. She said women in higher management position often worry people will think they are biased for hiring or promoting more women.

“I think that’s crazy! Men have been hiring men for decades. Why would it be so awful that, if you move into a senior role, that you make sure more women have opportunities?” She said it does not mean hiring a woman even if she is not good for the job, but that they should hire women who are good at their jobs.

She advised these women to act now instead of waiting for things to change in the future. She said the next generation of workers will start at the bottom rung of the corporate ladder and most will conform with the way things already are.

“The workplace does not change from the bottom up. The workplace changes from the top down... Those of us who have some power, like all the women in this room, need to become agents of change. We need to begin helping and supporting each other and coming up with strategic ways in which we can move ahead.”

Evans said one strategy is for women to be careful about how they speak about themselves and others. She said if a person talks about themselves as a subordinate, they will be one. However, if they speak about themselves as if they have leadership potential and get friends to do the same, they will look like they have more potential and other people will begin to believe it. “You need to really decide where you want to go and where you want to be and understand that we are who we say we are... use the language to get there.”

She also advised that people strike the words “hope” and “luck” from their business vocabulary. She said luck in business is really a combination of preparation and opportunity, and while hope is a wonderful personal and spiritual word, it is not a business strategy. She said there is a passivity about the word that does not force people to take action and make something happen for themselves.

GET TO WORK

Evans told the audience of mostly women that men are more likely to be mentored by and have friendships with people who will throw them in the deep end and get them to take risks. Women, on the other hand, are usually mentored by and have friendships with people who want to keep them safe.

For example, if a man wants to apply for a promotion he will tell his friends and they will encourage him and put in a good word on his behalf if possible. A woman, however, will keep it to herself, afraid of what will happen if she tells others and is rejected. And if she tells someone, the advice will usually be to not do the risky thing but to remain in the safe and comfortable position.

She suggested that women find a group of like-minded career women and meet for lunch once a month, and to spend 90 per cent of the time talking about business and about what they personally do at work. In this way everyone will get a more general view of the business world.

“The most important part about this is that you begin to develop a group of peers where it’s safe to talk about your ambitions, where you can talk about where you want to go or where you want to be with people who aren’t going to roll their eyeballs, or who are not going to try to keep you safe. They are going to help to push you out of the nest. I think for women that’s one of the most important things. That we have a support system of other women who are pushing us ahead, who are saying, ‘You can go for it,’ not trying to keep us safe. Because safety gets you into middle management but it doesn’t get you beyond it.”

In addition, Evans suggested that women become peer mentors by giving constructive feedback to a woman who needs it. She said she recognises that some women are concerned about how this feedback will affect a relationship or that it may hurt the other person’s feelings. However, she said it will be business information that will help the person improve. She added that if a woman decides to “wait for the right moment” and tell the person weeks later, then it will become personal.

She also advised women to find a way to make networking a natural, integral part of who they are, as it is a very important aspect of business. She said women should always be aware of who they are and what they do for a living, use any situation for networking, and maintain those links.

“We want to say that we have our personal life and we have our business life, and those are two wholly different kinds of things. I would suggest to everybody, in today’s modern world, we have one life and it is interconnected in all sorts of ways.”

She said authenticity is the most important word in leadership, and whether a leader is good or bad, people are inclined to follow authentic people because they know who and what they are getting.

“You need to be you. You need to be authentically you. But you need to be smart. So if there are rules about how the game of business is played and you don’t want to play by those rules, you need to know that there’s a cost so that you can step back and fold if you don’t want to do it.”