“Can I lead authentically as a woman at work?”
This is a question I often asked myself coming up in my own career. As a young Black woman and immigrant starting my career in corporate America, leadership was hardly ever mentioned around me. After all, I felt lucky enough and happy to have “snatched” a job after college…Just having a seat at the table, any table of any significance, felt enough of a privilege…
Fast-forward many career ups and downs, a full career transition into academia, and my under-developed views on leadership have quite significantly morphed. What I realized along my journey is that given the opportunity and space to do so, women can not only bring their own, intrinsic leadership to the table of their careers, but they can also develop it in ways that are truly authentic to them and hence more effective and powerful overall.
Yet, it has taken me a long time to even begin to think of myself as a leader. Leadership was not exactly one of the topics discussed around the dinner table in my single-parent home growing up in Senegal, a majority Muslim country where the majority of leaders were (and still are) men. However, I had the privilege of seeing my mother as the leader of our matriarchal household. Without realizing it then, I was already being primed to seeing women as leaders. Yet, I was not prepared to act on this image of leadership…
It’s not until now, decades later, that I started asking myself the question” “What does it mean to lead as a woman in a patriarchal society struggling to move beyond gender bias and barriers?”
Does it mean breaking the glass ceiling, or the concrete ceiling or wall for Black women, or the bamboo ceiling for Asian women? Does it mean ascending to the highest levels of one’s career? Does it even mean being recognized for your work? Is that leadership for women? Or is it merely the reflection of leadership we’ve received from the remnants of a patriarchal society we’re still holding on a feeble, yet sustained pedestal?
What is leadership, authentic leadership for women? What does it mean to lead in your own life, in an authentic, compelling manner? When I think of all the outer signs of career success and leadership, and the paradox it creates in so many women’s lives, pitting them against their own personal choices and sense of balance, I tend to ask: “But…is that leadership?” Or is it just about reaching an ideal that has not been set by women or for women?
Leadership as we know it, is not made for women. This is why so many leadership programs targeted at women, fail miserably. This is why as much as some companies are investing in women empowerment programs, they are not seeing expected returns. It is because the very foundation of leadership as we know it, is not adapted to working women and moms. This is what has been defined as the “second generation bias” largely explaining women’s under-representation in leadership roles, due to cultural assumptions and organizational structures reinforcing the lack of women role models, gendered work favoring and rewarding men, lack of network and sponsor access for women, and the mismatch between traditionally feminine qualities and leadership qualities.
In order to be a leader, you have to see yourself as a leader. In the absence of women leaders, and the absence or scarcity of leadership values that align with the reality of women’s lives and values, how can leadership as we know it be effective for and to women? How can women really lead, effectively and powerfully, in systems whose foundations were never made for them? Here are three ways that may help:
- Revisit your beliefs about leadership
What are your personal beliefs about leadership? How have they been shaped in the course of your life? Do you even see yourself as a leader?
These are a few questions that started my own leadership journey, and may also help begin or continue yours. Oftentime as women in general, we may not see ourselves as leaders because we have not been exposed to leaders who look, think or act like us. Leadership is after all, very much a gendered and patriarchal concept, which has been modeled after men for the longest time. Only in recent years, have we begun seeing women leaders in various areas, from politics to business.
Similarly, the models of leadership we’ve grown up with have most often reflected the patriarchal society we live in. Despite the increasing presence of women leaders, and all the benefits associated with women in leadership position, this foundational model has not evolved much. This has in turn literally forced women to conform to a way of leadership often not in alignment with them, holding on to the belief that there is no other way to lead.
This is where revisiting your beliefs about leadership may help in changing how you view leadership, and start reframing leadership in a way that serves your values, purpose and principles.
- Revisit the foundations of leadership in the organizations you’re a part of
In the same way, organizations, companies and businesses’ foundations of leadership have been modeled after patriarchal models. In most modern organizations, women are not seen as leaders, even when they hold a leadership position or title because men have been the leadership norm and default for so long. This is why so many leadership programs targeted at increasing the number of women leaders in organizations fail miserably. Leadership is deeper than just reaching a certain title or position, it’s about embodying the role of leader which requires seeing oneself and being seen as one.
This is where organizations must strive to identify , acknowledge and address what they define as leadership. In the process, they must seek to educate, empower, and steer their people toward a more diverse and inclusive concept of leadership.
- Redefine your own brand of leadership as a working woman and mom
Because leadership has been modeled after men, and too many women have in one way or another adopted styles of leadership not aligned with their values or purpose, leadership has revolved around how it looks for too long. What if instead, each and every one of us started asking ourselves the question: “What is my own way of leading?”
Being an authentic leader means acting in alignment with one’s values and purpose. As a working woman and mother, it means leading myself, leading in my home as a mom and wife, and leading in the workplace in my capacity. To me, it means leading with compassion, with integrity, and openness.
What does it mean to you?
So all in all, can I really, truly and authentically lead as a woman?
As I write these words, the answer is: It depends. It depends on how I reframe and redefine leadership as a working woman and mom; but it also depends on the spaces in which I can fully lead, in integrity and authenticity. There is much work to be done on both sides, yet the prospect of a future where women can lead as themselves is worth it…
The Corporate Sis.
