Sally Helgesen, the world's premier expert on women's leadership, wants women to get out of their own way. Helgesen has coached women, facilitated workshops and conducted research about women’s leadership for over 30 years. Her most recent book, How Women Rise, co-authored with leadership expert Marshall Goldsmith, examines the behaviors most likely to get in the way of women rising in their careers.
“In doing workshops for women all over the world,” Helgesen said, “it became clear to me that there was a common thread. There are certain behaviors that women have to embrace and they have to let go of.” Helgesen and Goldsmith identified twelve behaviors that may hold women back especially as they rise in organizations.
For example, women should embrace the need to actively seek opportunities to claim their achievements. “Often women will say ‘thank you, my team did all of the work’ or in some other way push aside or spread credit,” Helgesen said.
On the other side of that, women need to let go of expecting others to spontaneously notice and reward their contributions. According to Helgesen, women will often keep their heads down, do their jobs and expect that others will notice. Organizations don’t work that way, especially at the more senior ranks.
“I interviewed a number of women who are law partners,” Helgesen said, “They made partner later than their male counterparts. It was only later that they realized that they had never made clear they wanted to make partner. Instead they had assumed that their great work would automatically lead to partnership.”
Women also need to embrace the need to leverage relationships. “Women do a good job building relationships,” Helgesen said. “But women can get stuck in building and building relationships and not asking for anything, for not leveraging the relationship to help with their lives and their careers. Women may view asking for something as transactional, so they miss out on the value of the relationships.”
Another element of missing the value of relationships has to do with changing roles. When women get promoted or change jobs they should enlist allies on day one. According to Helgesen: “women will say ‘I’m going to keep my head down until I really get this job mastered.’ They don't reach out to anyone for help. The impact of that is that they get less support, much less visibility, and they end up doing a lot more work.
Having a perfectionist tendency is another element very likely to get in the way. This tendency gets honed throughout their careers because in companies women tend to be rewarded for precision and detail and men rewarded for boldness and big ideas. Women get the message that they will be rewarded if they are precise but that simply doesn’t work as women rise.
Helgesen pointed out that there are certainly social factors that contribute to women having a harder time getting promoted through the ranks than men. There are many structural and cultural embedded biases in companies and in society. But it’s important for women to recognize those issues, assess their own situations, and come up with a plan that will work for them in their current environments.
So how can women use this information to rise?
Awareness is a strong starting point. Look around you. Notice what gets rewarded. Then identify one behavior at a time. For example, if you expect others to spontaneously notice and reward your achievements, decide that you’re going to start by just showing others what you’ve contributed.
An example of this is an engineer whom Helgesen worked with. Her boss said he didn’t think she was connected enough. The engineer was irritated since she spent a lot of her time connecting with others. She realized that her boss had no way of knowing that, so she started a strategy of sending him an email weekly about whom she had connected with that week. She thought he would find that annoying but in fact he found it helpful – he had no other way of knowing what she was doing on that front.
As you gain more awareness and start making some changes, use it as an opportunity to engage others as allies. You want to let others know you are working on,” said Helgesen. “You are changing behaviors and you have to also change perceptions.”
For example, you might tell a colleague “I’m trying to be more concise in the leadership meeting. Can you try to notice and give me feedback?” That helps establish you as allies and also gives you valuable insight.
You have to exercise judgment in who you trust to make these requests. Start on a small level and only make yourself vulnerable to people you trust. If you do that it’s a very powerful way to build allies.
Finally, Helgesen said that women have to let go of harsh judgment of themselves. “Let go of small setbacks and stay focused on the goals.” A tool to do this is to let go of harsh judgment of others. If you see someone as being self-promotional, for example, rather than judge her, take her as a role model. You don’t have to mimic her, but what can you learn from her?
Helgesen said that her thirty years of work has had a personal impact as well. “I used to hole up and prepare myself to death before workshops,” she said. “Now I do the right amount. I don’t wing it but I recognize that I am talking about my own content, my own research, my own experience. My authority comes from my background and experience. I’ve learned to trust my own ability.”
