I remember having passionate conversations with my husband about artificial intelligence (AI). A progressive adopter of new technologies, he couldn’t understand my initial resistance to AI. I, as a strong believer in human creativity and intellect, and a staunch feminist at that, insisted on waging a months-long intellectual opposition to artificial intelligence (AI). What an insult to human intelligence! Yet, while Dear Hubby was saving hours leveraging AI to assist him with unending emails and administrative tasks, here I was spending hours trying to get through a half-a-day’s emails. Fast-forward a few months later, AI is reshaping women’s careers and has become my favorite assistant in the meantime…
Actually, recent research by the University of North Carolina estimates 80% of women in the U.S. workforce are in professional occupations highly threatened by AI automation. The most AI-exposed occupations with the highest percentages of womeninclude account and bill collectors, payroll clerks, executive secretaries, typists and word processors, as well as bookkeepers, auditing and accounting clerks. In general, AI mostly impact administration, healthcare, education and social services, all sectors with higher proportions of women. More recently, the 2023 World Economic Forum Future of Jobs report predicts a 27% drop in jobs such as cashiers, administrators, payroll clerks and secretaries.
Yet, despite posing undeniable threats to women’s careers, AI can also provide opportunities for women. As society seeks ways to counteract extreme automation, feminine attributes such as collaboration, compassion and empathy are more than ever relevant and needed in the workplace. While unfortunately reinforcing gender bias, AI also has the reverse potential to identify and address gender inequalities. By enabling remote work and flexible scheduling, it has offered mothers greater flexibility and protecting Black and minority women for micro-aggressions at work.
In addition, AI can also take over some of the more tedious and less productive “office housework” tasks, largely assigned to women. This in turn will allow women to devote more time to value-adding and visible responsibilities, such as leadership and networking-related functions. As the AI-driven automation can hep reduce workloads and increase efficiency, it allows working women and moms to reclaim some of their time while still being employed. This is also valid for women entrepreneurs, who can leverage AI to save precious time and boost their business growth.
HOW TO LEVERAGE THE OPPORTUNITY AND FIGHT THE THREAT OF AI
In this sense, while AI is certainly a threat for women, it also has the potential to level the professional playing field for women. But how can women effectively prepare to leverage the advantages of AI and reduce the drawbacks? Here are some suggestions to leverage the opportunity and fight the threat of AI:
Start with your mindset
Being so skeptical about AI at first, I could not initially see it for the tool that it is. Overwhelmed by the many AI biases against women, and concerned that it would take so many jobs away from actual people, I developed a built-in mindset block. It wasn’t until I learned to shift my mindset that I began to truly realize its potential beyond its visible threats. Once I understood AI can never replicate the unique human and feminine spirit, emotions and attributes such as creativity, empathy, or critical thinking, I began seeing it as less of a threat.
Do you, like I did, have built-in mindset blocks against AI? How do you approach it as a new and evolving technology with its pros and cons? Understanding your own mindset about AI can help you shift from seeing it as a threat to seeing it as a tool that can be leveraged for the benefit of people.
Explore AI literacy
Becoming AI-literate is no longer an option, especially as a woman at work. This means fighting the initial resistance to stick to old habits, routines and processes, and adapt to new technologies. I know all too well the feeling of not wanting to start all over again learning a new disciple or adopting new tools.
From courses to applications such as Grammarly, ChaptGPT, or Claude, there is a plethora of available tools to begin your AI literacy journey. Pick the tools that are most suited to your personality, schedule and appetite to grow in learning and using AI.
Wherever you are in your career and life, by being more aware of these challenges, you can harness opportunities to leverage, critique and improve the technology around you. From participating in STEM fields yourself, to becoming more AI literate, and offering your own perspective, you have the power to change things.
All in all, AI certainly presents many challenges and opportunities for women. As such, it’s reshaping women’s careers and lives in monumental and ever-evolving ways. Shifting your mindset about it, developing AI literacy and advocating for AI gender equality are all strategies women can use to increase the related opportunities and lessen the negative aspects of it.
Is AI more of an opportunity or threat in your career, and how are you leveraging it?
I can’t distinctly recall when it happened exactly. Somewhere between the “tween” and teen stage, my daughter refused to wear dresses. Or at least the dresses I would buy her. While seemingly insignificant, this drew a pretty significant line in the sand of my motherhood experience. And it wasn’t just about the nostalgia of pretty pink flowery dresses either…Somewhere through this shift, the reality of parenting teens as a working mom in modern times brutally imposed itself, with its heavy weight of mental, emotional, spiritual and even physical pressure, tempered only by the bittersweet adventure that is mothering young adults…
Why didn’t anyone tell me about any of this before? Wasn’t I supposed to be warned of the impending, heart-wrenching rip in one’s mother’s heart that is adolescence? And why didn’t anyone share the remedies available to such a drastic transition, especially through the uncertainty of a modern world without a blueprint for working moms?
THE CHALLENGES OF PARENTING TEENS
While there is ample research on the topic of adolescence in general, and parenting’s impact on teens, much less has been studied on the effect of parenting teens on working moms. The reality is, parenting is an ever-evolving, sweet and sour battle for mothers. In the book Maternal Optimism: Forging positive paths through work and motherhood, authors Jamie Ledge and Danna Greenberg describe motherhood as a non-linear path. They also encourage working moms to forge their own paths through its various stages.
TRANSITIONING TO THE ADOLESCENCE STAGE AS A WORKING MOM
As a working mom and parent of teenagers, the transition to adolescence was a particularly challenging one. It wasn’t just about kids growing up or their own personal dress choices (goodbye, flowery pink dresses). Nor was it just about my own nostalgia of earlier years and the bitter sweetness of kids growing up. It was mostly about the unpreparedness that I, and so many other working mothers, feel when faced with the mental, emotional and physical roller-coaster of teenage years.
The days of kissing kids’ boo-boos are now being replaced with the need to be available to manage emotional meltdowns, keep unseen social media dangers at bay, and learn about potential mental health concerns. It also means becoming better at integrating work and life, being there for first dates and soccer tournaments, tracking phones’ activities, and learning new cool words. There are so many joys, big and small, embedded in each precious moment of discovery and learning as a mom of teens. There are also many small and large costs involved, from the switching costs of focus, to the heavier mental load of constantly being preoccupied with teens’ online, mental and physical safety…
In the busy world of modern parenting, no one prepares you for this…As an immigrant particularly, adapting to new ways of thinking and doing parenting in a decidedly different world, no one even thinks to warn you beforehand. As a woman at work, there is no memo explaining that you may have to interrupt a presentation because your teen sends you a preoccupying text, or because it’s only their third time driving on the highway…
MANAGING THE TEEN TRANSITION
So, without a blueprint, and in the absence of a supportive village in many cases, how can we as working moms manage the transition to and new parenting phase of adolescence? Here are three ways I’d like to suggest, from my own imperfect and still very much ongoing experience:
Get prepared!
Don’t wait until adolescence is knocking at the door of your motherhood journey to learn about it. Talk to moms of teenagers around you, ask questions, and start preparing for your own journey into the teenage years.
I wish someone had sat me down for a good, sobering, maybe even tear-filled chat about it. But no one did, because unfortunately there aren’t enough crucial conversations about mothering to go aroung. So instead of waiting for those conversations, why don’t we initiate them?
Define your own brand of adolescent motherhood!
As your kids become teenagers, so does your experience of motherhood. While there’s much valid parenting advice out there, the reality is, parenting is not a one-size-fits-all experience. Hence the need to define and develop your own brand of mothering through the teenage years. While you may choose to be more hands-on in your approach, another mom may opt to adopt a more surrendered perspective.
How you see yourself as a mom during the teenage years is going to affect much of your motherhood journey. So choose a vision and an approach that is flexible enough to reflect who you authentically are and who you’re growing into as a working mom.
Build your own path through the teen years.
Getting prepared for the journey and defining your own brand of motherhood through the teen years is setting the foundation. Building your own path is actually doing the work. This is where you get your hands dirty, and shape your own journey as a working mom of teenagers.
It may mean altering the way you’ve been building your career, allowing for more flexibility and availability. Or doing the healing work that allows you to better understand, evolve and accompany your kids through this phase. It also means having the necessary, often tough, conversations with your teens as you steer them and yourself through this new phase of your relationship. For me, it’s been actively learning what it means to parent teenagers in a modern society. Books such as Dr. Shefali Tsabary’s The Conscious Parent, or The Awakened Family, have been precious guides in the process. Whatever it is for you, it will require taking some action or another as you tread on this path.
Overall, parenting teens should be talked about more often and honestly among working moms. More stories, advice and recommendations should be shared to help working moms. More information should also be shared with places of employment, organizations and business structures, so they can recognize and honor this delicate phase of parenting for working moms. There ought to be more personal and professional support and infrastructure for working mothers going through this phase as well.
By getting prepared early, defining your own brand of adolescent mothering, and building your own unique path through it, you can lessen the shock often involved during these years. You can also leverage the beauty of this phase of motherhood without relinquishing yourself as a working woman and mom.
What advice do you have for working moms parenting teens?
Here I was, standing in front of a full classroom of students, not quite fully ready to step into this new academic career. Everything in my past experience, from shying away from speaking up, to a predominantly behind-the-scenes corporate career, seemed to go against what I was about to begin. But I had to begin… so one word after the other, one practical application after the other, I transitioned careers from Big Corporate to Big Academia. Slowly but surely, I learned to reclaim my own style of leadership in a new career, a new space, and a new expression of purpose. And I’m glad to report I haven’t looked back ever since…
Many Obstacles to Women’s Leadership…
The Merriam-webster dictionary defines leadership as the “capacity to lead”. As a working mom and a woman of color, leadership was initially quite the foreign concept for me. It may also have been for you. I mean, the blatant under-representation of women, especially women of color, from the boardroom to the office and the front of the classroom, has not exactly been encouraging. As of 2023, women only held 10.6% of leadership positions at Fortune 500 companies. This is with only two Black women in leadership, including Thasunda Brown Duckett at TIAA and Roz Brewer at Walgreens. The plethora of societal biases plaguing the very existence of women in certain professional and entrepreneurial spaces has not helped either. Nor has the recent rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in light of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning affirmative action.
In an era where threats against women’s belonging in and legitimacy are over-abundant, it is fair to wonder how to lead. Or if we can even lead…Some of the most pressing questions around women’ s leadership have been:
How do you lead when very few of those who look like you are in positions of leadership? How do you lead when there is no blueprint or support for someone like you to lead?
And how do you lead in the face of constant change, threats to your very belonging, and societal biases questioning your very existence in certain spaces?
Yet, the leadership we see is not the leadership we can get…
Yet, when it comes to women’s leadership, could it be that what we see is not exactly what we can get? The thing is, when I used to think of leadership, I thought of it as being in a position of authority or power as traditionally defined by society. While this may be true in some cases, what occurred to me through my career is that while valid, this is only an external manifestation of leadership. Although not many women currently hold traditional offices of power and authority, many, if not, most women are natural-born leaders and naturally lead in their environments. Effective leadership skills such as communication, organization and consensus are innate to women. So could it be that the real issue is not so much to focus on having more women leaders, but rather to first help more women develop their own, already existing, capacity to lead?
Experience has taught me over and over again, that true leadership is not a matter of external positioning. Rather, it’s one of internal positioning. As working women and moms, much of the battle of reclaiming our authentic brand of leadership starts within. It starts with the reframing of our mindsets about what leading means to each and every one of us. It is in the development of our internal capacity to lead first, which then flows into authentic external manifestation.
If you have been wondering how to reclaim your own leadership in these uncertain times, here are three strategies you may want to consider:
Define your own brand of authentic leadership
What does leadership mean to you in this season of your life and career? This is a question I invite you to ponder not just every once in a while, but periodically and consistently. While it took a big shift for me to reclaim a sense of authentic leadership, it may not have to take as much for you.
Whether you are just starting your career, or in the midst of a personal or professional transition, now is as good a time as any to define your own style of leadership. Some questions you may ask yourself in the process include:
What are your specific strengths and values, and how do they color the way you lead?
What is your style of leadership?
Which spaces are most aligned with your leadership, and which are not?
If you’re on your own leadership journey, I strongly recommend reading “Dare to Lead“ by New York Times best-selling author Dr. Brene Brown. This book will help you become braver as you cultivate the courage to lead from the heart.
Develop a holistic approach to leadership
Leadership starts within. It is after all, the capacity to lead. So it cannot, and should not, be confined to the bounds of some office space, boardroom, or professional arena. As women especially, our leadership tends to permeate every area of our lives, from motherhood, to relationships and work. This is exactly what makes us capable of leading in very unique, authentic and effective ways.
As you reframe your own leadership, let it build up from everything you bring to the table as a working woman and mom. How you lead at home will impact how you lead in the workplace, and vice-versa. There are no compartments really. There are only parts that can and should integrate one with the others, like puzzle pieces that ought to work together to create a full, and fulfilling picture of a life well-lived.
Some questions you may ask yourself include:
How does the way I lead at home or in my relationships inform the way I lead at work?
What are the skills, strengths and values I bring to my leadership outside of the workplace? How can I repurpose them professionally? And vice-versa?
What kind of leader am I in the various areas of my life? And how can I embrace a holistic leadership approach encompassing all the spaces I evolve in?
In her book ” Lead from the outside“, political leader, serial entrepreneur and New York Times best-seller Stacey Abrams discusses harnessing the strengths of being an outsider. As she argues that differences in race, gender and class are surmountable, she also helps to see leadership in a more authentic way.
Adapt, pivot and change
Nothing remains the same. Developing your own capacity to lead is also developing your ability to adapt, pivot and change. From remote work to the advent of artificial intelligence, the world of work continues to evolve. So must we continue to adapt and evolve as well…
Transitioning careers has taught me invaluable lessons on the power of adapting, while remaining authentic to one’s purpose. As a matter of fact, had this transition not happened, I would probably not have stumbled upon my own capacity to lead. Change is often the catalyst that spurs us to step into areas of ourselves we may not have suspected, or may have previously minimized. So if there is an area of growth or change that you have been resisting, this may be your sign to use it as an opportunity to adapt, pivot and change.
Some questions you may ask yourself include:
What are the changes that are happening in my personal and professional world?
How are these changes calling me out of my comfort zone?
What can I learn from and become through these changes as a leader?
If you’re looking to develop your capacity to adapt, pivot and change, “Who Moved My Cheese?” is an absolute read. This book offers a simple yet so effective approach to handling change and personal growth.
All in all, since the dawn of times, women have reclaimed leadership despite the fear and uncertainty surrounding them. Today is no exception. By reframing your own style of leadership, building it up from the sum of your life experiences, and developing your own capacity to adapt, you can do the same, on your own terms.
I was recently on a trip back home to Senegal to visit my aging parents. Sandwiched in between taking care of my parents, mothering my teens from a distance, and intermittently checking my work email, I realized how much motherhood had evolved for me. I was literally mothering my aging parents, while remotely ensuring my kids were ok, and still trying to wear all the hats even while away. As I was watching my mother, I also could notice how much motherhood had changed for her as well. If you’re reading this and nodding, you may have noted how your own experiences of motherhood have changed over time as well. You may also be struggling with integrating motherhood and career as you evolve as a working mom….
Motherhood is an ever-changing journey…
One thing I’ve learned as a working mom, is that motherhood is an ever-changing journey. Never quite the same from one year to the other, one season to the other. One season, you’re changing diapers back-to-back while preparing your return to work after maternity leave. Another season, you’re worrying about your teen’s mental health, while learning to mother your own parents. Yet another, you’re dropping young adults off to college, and coming back to an empty nest. Through it all, your vision of motherhood must keep evolving, as your heart and mind adjust to the changes…
The Challenges of Integrating Motherhood and Career…
Add to this the ever-present challenges of integrating motherhood and career in today’s fast-paced world. Now more than ever it seems, the demands on parents, and on mothers in particular, are astronomical to say the least. Modern stressors such as social media, the youth mental health crisis, and unique economic challenges have put heavy pressure on parents, leading to the recent U.S. Surgeon General advisory on the mental health and well-being of parents. This is even more prevalent with evolving professional expectations in 2025, including leadership roles, as well as hybrid and remote work. Women are increasingly entering leadership roles, at a rate of 37% in 2024, up from 32% in 2015, according to Mc Kinsey & Company’s Women in the Workplace 2024 report. Women are also more likely to select remote or flexible work options, citing work-life integration, increased focus and productivity, and reduced exposure to micro-aggressions.
All of these challenges make it all the more important to re-evaluate our own kind of motherhood every so often; and reflecting on how to better integrate motherhood and career. What kind of mother am I in this season? Where am I in my life and career as related to the mom I am today? What needs to stay? What needs to go? Such are the heart-wrenching, but necessary questions, so many of us often fail to ask ourselves as we journey through motherhood as working moms.
When was the last time you re-evaluated your own vision and definition of motherhood? Have you asked yourself lately what kind of mom you see yourself as? When did you last etch in your mind, or on paper, the picture of your own brand of motherhood?
If these questions resonate with you, here are some steps to define your own vision of motherhood this year:
1. Do Your “Mommy Audit”
Just like you perform your career audit periodically, take some time to pause and perform your “mommy audit” as well. Assessing who you are as a working mom in this season of your life and career is the first step to defining (and redefining) your own vision of motherhood.
Are you in a season where your kids are smaller and your career is taking a backseat? Or are you faced with the delicate teenage years while caring for aging parents and moving into leadership roles at work? Or are you an empty nester with more time on your hands?
2. Define what matters most in motherhood and career
Based on your “mommy audit”, identify your family and work priorities in this season of your life and career. What matters most this year, quarter, month, or even week? This also requires creating boundaries around your non-negotiables, including family events, family time, and work hours.
If like me, you are raising teenagers requiring you to be more present as they gain their independence, then blocking your time off to be more present becomes crucial. This may also prompt you to work in a more focused and efficient manner so you can honor your family time.
3. Master Your Time
Time is working moms’ most precious, and most abused, commodity. Hence why guarding your time is a priority as a working mom. There are a few things you can do to protect your time:
Leverage technology: From calendar apps such as Calendly, to project management tools such as Asana, and family scheduling platforms like good ol’ Google shared calendars, are my go-to’s.
Block your time: I often say “if it’s not on my calendar, it’s not happening’. Allocating specific blocks of time for parenting, self-care, and work allows to waste less time.
Break tasks into smaller steps: Learning to break down big projects into smaller tasks allows to be more intentional and effective with your use of time.
Delegate, delegate, delegate: You can’t do it all. And why would you want to? Setting a system to delegate tasks and responsibilities at home and at work can go a long way towards freeing your time. As a bonus, research shows kids are more successful when they do chores.
4. Build a Support System
An important part of defining or re-defining your vision as a working mom in the new year is to re-evaluate your support system. It takes a village to raise kids, have a career and wear all the hats working moms do. However, the unfortunate reality is, too many working moms do not have a village to rely on. This is where learning to build your own villages comes into play:
Build your work village: Asking for support at work is not a weakness. However, this depends on the type of work environment you’re in. What does building your work village look like? It can look like advocating for increased flexibility, such as flexible or remote work opportunities. Support at work can also come in the form of mentors or sponsors, who may well understand working mothers’ challenges and help advocate for you.
Build your home village: At home, support can look like enlisting the help of your spouse, children, family, and childcare services. It can also take the form of supportive working parents’ network, who can serve as resources as well.
5. Embrace self-care
Self-care is a non-negotiable as a working mom. Whether it’s prioritizing your health through exercise, sleep and healthy eating, or scheduling “me time”, carving some time out for you is a must.
Another important aspect of self-care has to do with letting go of the “mommy guilt” eating at you every time you do something for you. Instead, choosing to shift your mindset from guilt to “doing your best” can help in the process. Lastly, don’t forget to celebrate your wins, small or big.
6. Set Your Vision
Now is the time to put all the pieces together and create a vision of your own brand of working motherhood. What milestones fit into this vision? How can they be broken into smaller, more achievable pieces? How can you align your long-term family vision to your professional goals?
7. Get Inspired by Other Women
Last but not least, get inspiration from the women around you to fuel your vision as you refine and adjust it over time. Who are the women around you who are successfully integrating their family life and work? Are there even role models on social media that you can informally get inspired by?
All in all, integrating motherhood and career looks different from one person to the next. At the end of the day, it’s really about what works for each and everyone of us. Taking small, actionable steps can help. Thriving both as a parent and as a professional is possible, after all.
In this episode, I discuss ditching traditional career goals and instead embracing your own career vision by audting your career in the past 12 months. I discuss 10 steps to start with at the beginning of 2025 to audit your career.
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‘Tis the season to set big, lofty career goals for the New Year. It rolls around every year, lasts about a couple of days/weeks/minutes to a month and generally ends in a puddle of unanswered emails and too long meetings. If you’ve been there, you know what I’m referring to. You also may realize like me that with time, we may get tired of the big, lofty goals, and want something different. You know the “it’s not you, it’s me” kind of thing, just with your career on a Monday morning instead of the usual Saturday night heart-to-heart. And like so many working women and moms, you may just have come to the point where you’re ready to move on from the collection of scattered, albeit great, goals, and embrace the vision of your career that fits in with your life.
I realized after years of setting pages-long lists of ambitious career goals that I wanted something else. Something more “me”, that lets me be all of me, the mom, wife, writer, nerd and everything in between. After a career change, kids, marriage, and in the throngs of perimenopause, I was over the career hype and fallacy that women should have it all at all times. Basically, I was tired of dating my work goals, and ready to marry my ideal career. There, I said it…
Why Ditch Your Work Goals and Marry Your Career Vision Instead
Your work goals are the guys you pick and go on a few dates with. Your career vision is the guy you marry and stick with (hopefully) for the rest of your life, through the ups and downs, the kids, mortgage, grey hairs and aching knees. Now your career vision may take different forms, quite a few iterations, lots of changes, flexibility and forgiveness, but at the end of the day, it’s still the vision.It still keeps you grounded while teaching you to bob and weave through the obstacle courses of life as a working woman and mom. And no one goes through longer and more arduous obstacle courses in life than women and moms…
So if you’re a working woman looking to be more grounded in your career while still maintaining your professional edge, I’d strongly suggest jumping out of the goal-dating poll into the vision-setting arena. And it starts with auditing your career first. Independently of being an ex-auditor and totally biased on the subject, I’m also a fervent believer of the maxim “In order to know where you’re going, you must know where you’re coming from.” Your career holds a wealth of data that can help you learn about yourself, your purpose and your vision; that is, if you take the time to re-evaluate it periodically, at least once a quarter. And this is exactly what a career audit can provide…
Why Auditing Your Career Matters
Just like a financial audit sheds light on the financial results of a business, a career audit provides clarity on you stand professionally. Not only is it a powerful indicator of your strengths and areas of growth, it’s also an opportunity to reflection on your purpose and alignment with your life path. A career audit can help you determine if the work you do indeed supports you values and priorities, and contributes to your well-being, or if it’s time to make some changes.
Here are a 10 steps to audit your career and set a vision for your professional future:
Step 1: Make an Inventory of Your Achievements
This first step is probably the most underrated, yet among the most critical ones, especially for working women. While many of us tend to underestimate our accomplishments, they can be a powerful source of information for our careers. Whether these are successful projects, professional milestones, or individual objectives, do not discount them!
Ask yourself:
How did I best contribute to my team or organization?
What were my most significant wins at work?
What are the achievements I am the most proud of, and why?
Action Step:
To make this process easier, create your own “Bragging File” by using a spreadsheet or journal to keep track of your accomplishments. In addition to being an undeniable mood-booster, it will also facilitate the process of updating your resume/CV as well as your Linked In profile.
Step 2: Assess Your Growth
Your growth in skills and abilities is your career currency. Assessing how much you’ve grown in terms of the skills you’ve acquired or improved is crucial to auditing your career. So is the practice of flagging the areas in which you need more improvement.
Ask yourself:
What new skills did I gain this past year?
What existing skills did I improve upon?
Are my current skills in alignment with my career progression and industry trends?
Action Step:
To help with this step, create a learning plan for this year including the skills you plan on learning or improving in. Your learning plan may include workshops to attend, online courses or certifications to take, or mentorship in specific areas.
Step 3: Evaluate Your Job Satisfaction
You spend too much time at work not to assess your job satisfaction. It’s about more than just collecting a pay check. It’s also about your fulfillment, your joy, and ultimately your alignment with your purpose.
Ask yourself:
What was your level of job satisfaction this past year on a scale of 1-10?
Did you feel supported and valued at your place of work?
Was your personal life in sync with your career and vice-versa?
Action Step:
Depending on your job satisfaction score, asses what needs to change in your career. It may be considering a new role, seeking a promotion, or making a lateral move.
Step 4: Review Your Performance Feedback
Feedback is a powerful tool to help identify your strengths, areas of growth, as well as the fit of the team or organization you’re in. Reviewing the feedback you receive, whether in the form of formal performance reviews, internal feedback, or informal advice, can go a long way in assessing how you are perceived and making the necessary changes, if needed.
Ask yourself:
What were the main themes emerging from the feedback you received this past year?
What were the areas of improvement and growth noted?
Did you agree with the feedback?
What did you do to implement the advice given?
Action Step:
Create a feedback evaluation file, where you log in the main feedback themes, areas of growth, as well as steps taken to address these. Based on your evaluation, identify areas you will work on this year to address the feedback from last year.
Step 5: Evaluate Your Compensation
Newsflash: the gender pay gap is far from closing. Hence why it is so important to periodically review your compensation. This not only ensures that you’re aware of industry trends, as well as competitive salaries for your role, but that you also keep yourself marketable in your role and company.
Ask yourself:
Is my salary competitive with industry trends and standards?
Is my salary in line with peers at my current organization?
Are my benefits in line with my actual needs (parental leave, healthcare, retirement, etc)
Action step:
Create an “I’m Worth It” Folder that you periodically update with research on the current salary benchmarks for your industry and role. You can use platforms such as Payscale or Glassdoor to conduct your research.
Prepare yourself to negotiate your salary and/or benefits if need be.
Step 6: Conduct a Network Audit
One of the most underrated career assets for women is their network. Sallie Krawcheck, founder and CEO of women’s focused investment platform Ellevest, famously said: “Networking is the number one unwritten rule of success”. And she was right on the money…
The stronger and more diverse your network, the stronger your career…
Ask yourself:
What new professional connections did you make the past year?
Did you nurture your professional network in the past year?
Do you need to strengthen your network, in terms of mentors, sponsors and peers in your field and beyond?
Action step:
Crete a “Networking File” where you log at least one networking event per quarter, and update it regularly as you strengthen your network.
Step 7: Re-evaluate Your Work-Life Alignment
I don’t believe in work-life balance. There, I said it again…At the end of the day, balance is elusive, but alignment is possible. Re-evaluating how well this alignment is working is a priority at the beginning of every year, and frankly, anywhere in between.
Ask yourself:
Did you feel your work was in alignment with your personal life this past year?
Did you experience overwhelm or burnout? When and for how long?
Did you set proper boundaries last year to take care of yourself? If not, why?
Action step:
Commit to setting boundaries in your work this year. It could be not addressing emails after a certain time, or not working on weekends.
Step 8: Fail Forward
Repeat with me: “Failure is not a dirty word.” Research by Borgnovi and Han (2021) shows women tend to report higher fear of failure than their male counterparts, which can negatively impact women in and out of the workplace. Yet, failures are one of the most invaluable sources of growth. Hence why reflecting on what didn’t go well can be so beneficial in a new season.
Ask yourself:
What were my biggest professional failures and challenges this past year?
What did I learn from these?
What can I do this year to not repeat the same failures?
Action step:
By now, you know I love creating reflection-based files. Well, this is no exception. Create a “Failure Journal” to log your failures throughout the year, lessons learned and steps taken to address these. Remember, the more you recover from failure, the better you get…
Step 9: Visualize your Ideal Career
Now the real fun starts…Call me a dreamer, but I believe in seeing the end result before it manifests, that is, seeing it in your mind’s eye. So pause and take a minute (or 100) to dream up your ideal career. Visualize in the eye of your mind what your career looks like at the end of this year.
Ask yourself:
How does your career feel at the end of this year? (peaceful, energizing, inspiring, etc)
What role or work environment is a good fit for you?
What accomplishments would make you feel purposeful and fulfilled this year?
How does your career best align with you personal life and values?
Action Step:
Create your “Career Vision Board” where you illustrate with pictures what your ideal career looks like. If you’re not a vision board type of gal, then consider writing yourself a letter describing your ideal career. Use these all throughout the year to refresh yourself on your vision.
Step 10: Commit to a first step toward your vision!
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and your ideal career won’t either. So start this journey with a first step. Decide on ONE thing you can do TODAY to leverage your career audit and move toward your career vision.
Ask yourself:
What is ONE thing I can do TODAY to get closer to the vision of my ideal career?
Action Step:
This one is pretty short. Just do it!
Performing a career audit is not for the faint of hearts, I’ll give you that. Yet, it may be the single most rewarding investment you make of your time and energy as the year starts, especially as a working woman and mom. Reflecting on your path so far, and committing to a career vision that frees you to be all of you, is already a win! And you’re just starting the year…
Will be auditing your career this year? Are you ready to embrace the vision for your career this year?
As one of the only women at work, I used to dread performance review time, especially at year-end. Although I was supposed to know what to expect, it was most often a somewhat unclear, hence stressful experience. However, the more I’ve grown personally and professionally, I’ve learned there is so much more to performance reviews than meets the eye, especially for women. The reality is, performance reviews are riddled with gender biases. Being aware of and understanding these can help in proactively addressing and dismantling these.
Here are 4 types of gender biases to look out for as a woman at work:
Language bias
Research shows there exists a language bias to performance reviews. Stanford Graduate School of Business professor of organizational behavior Shelley J. Correll co-authored a 2020 study which coded the performance review language used by employees at a Fortune 500 company. The study found that based on the gender of the employee, managers tend to perceive the same or similar behaviors differently. This is akin to “gender policing” whereby women are judged differently for engaging in the same behavior as men, experiencing a backlash when they do not fall within gender norms. More specifically, significant biases were found in the evaluations of people’s personalities, potential and exceptionalism. This is mostly due to ill-defined performance review protocols and processes which give way to this bias.
Visibility Bias
Due to innate gender differences between men and women, women are more apt to favor skills such as communication and collaboration than men. Women may spend more time and effort on less visible tasks, such as organizing team events or ensuring team cohesion. Linked In’s 2023 report on global differences in skills shows women hold more soft skills than men, at a rate of 13.6% for women vs. 10.6% of skills for men. Men on the other hand, also due to these innate gender differences, may focus on more income-earning skills, which may be applied in more visible roles. Data shows higher shares of disruptive tech skills for men than women, for instance. These may include tasks such as leading meetings or speaking at conferences.
Because highly visible tasks are easier to measure and quantify in terms of organizational impact and benefit, they tend to rank higher on performance evaluations. Meanwhile, less visible ones may fall to the bottom of the performance evaluation scale. Much of this lends itself to a dangerous bias, and is mostly due to the lack of or poor setting of individualized goals.
Proximity bias
If you’ve ever been in a team setting, you may have noted this bias. The proximity bias favors people who are in proximity, as it is assumed that those in close proximity do more work or more important work. This is especially relevant since the pandemic as remote work appears to help keep more women, especially working moms, in the work force. According to a 2023 Hamilton Project Report, 70.4% of moms with kids under the age of 5 were in the workforce, which constitutes an all-time high record.
However, as more working women and moms may work remotely, they may also fall victim to this proximity bias. Not being present in the office as much as their male counterparts, who may benefit from their partners’ support at home, may penalize women and moms at a larger scale.
Ingroup Bias
Ingroup bias is the tendency to favor those who are members of one’s groups over those who may be perceived as not belonging. This may particularly impact working women and moms who may not be seen as belonging to male-dominated industries, companies or groups. This can also significantly affect women and moms working remotely.
While both men and women can be victims of this bias, women may be more at risk due to the already existing gender biases against women. As men tend to be seen more as leaders, they may indirectly benefit from this.
Recognizing and addressing these biases is crucial in improving the outcome of performance reviews. Some ways to address these include, but may not be limited to, improving the performance review process and protocols, educating managers on these biases, and proactively seeking more actionable feedback.
Have you encountered any of these performance review biases as a woman at work?
