Have a Seat with the C-Suite, Vol. 10
Try - If we want to close the boardroom gender gap, we need to stop helping women – and start fixing workplaces
Earlier this month, the CEO of Qatar Airways said that his company had to be led by a man because the job is too demanding for a woman. We’ve debunked these myths about women in leadership before. So has Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, the CEO of 20-First, a gender equity-focused consulting firm. She talks about conventional approaches to diversity in terms of their emphasis on fixing women: “Womens’ networks, women’s coaching, mentoring for women, it’s all well-meaning but in the City, there are conferences for women and it’s a really good way to get an award, to look good, or say that you’re so progressive. [But] the guys that lead it, they’ll come in at the beginning of a women’s conference and say ‘I so support you’ and then they leave, as if it’s not their business.” Instead of fixing women, Wittenberg-Cox advocates for fixing workplaces. First, she convinces her clients (businesses like Nestle and Unilever) that balanced workplaces are financially advantageous. Then, she shows them that organizational structures prohibit women from being promoted. Finally, she advocates for a balanced workplace. She says, “We want gender balanced shortlists because we want gender balance. Promotions need to be gender balanced. Instead of ‘men taking paycuts’ it should be ‘check that salaries are balanced’.” Education leaders can certainly adopt some of these tactics: think about ways that you can illustrate the advantages of gender-balanced leadership, highlight organizational obstructions to that balance, and advocate for solutions that make sense in your context. (Quick note: for this article from The Guardian and the one that follows from EdWeek, you can register at the website in order to read the entirety of each article for free without subscribing or committing to a trial.)
Read - Education Reforms Should Obey Campbell's Law
I wasn’t familiar with Campbell’s Law until I read this article. The simplest version of the law states, “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to become a good measure.” We see this frequently in education. Want kids to be proficient in reading or math? Test those subjects. The unintended consequences include reduced rigor and cheating scandals. We see this in our neighborhoods. Want slower traffic throughout your city? Officers are incentivized to issue speeding citations. The unintended consequences include lots of tickets, even if not all are fair or deserved. To be clear, the data aren’t harmful and this is not an argument against accountability. This is an argument for sober consideration of what measures indicate success in a given endeavor. For example, if we want to see gender balance in superintendencies nationwide, what measures might capture progress toward that outcome? We might report that women are in mentorship or training programs. Might there be an unintended consequence? Sure – programs might pop up all over the place without providing any real pathway to leadership. This is an important consideration and one that asks us to balance measurable outcomes with a tendency to devalue the very thing we choose to measure.
Share - 4 facts about how gender still affects women’s university majors & careers
This article is a great social media share because it succinctly captures some key realities about all workplaces – not just in education – that influence the ways in which women choose their majors and careers. You might notice a couple of contradictions: women are majoring in fields of study traditionally dominated by men but outnumber men in applications to low-paying jobs. Pay is a big deal and women who outperform men still tend to be paid less than men. This might start some interesting conversations on your Facebook or Twitter feed. Consider asking both men and women if they notice these imbalances and ask how (if at all) their workplaces have addressed them. You might also highlight one of your own specific experiences that aligns with one of the four facts. While this piece is thin on actions we can take to promote or restore balance to workplaces, the next find has ample suggestions.
Lead - #metoo in the Meantime
While this article is focused on women in higher education, the action steps and accompanying rationale are useful. Author and professor Elizabeth Lehfeldt suggests that the actions we take do more than foster interpersonal relationships – they “improve the work environment for our female colleagues.” She calls her suggestions “interventions” because “the accumulation of these small steps, if enough of us did them, would also help to shift the culture at our institutions in significant ways.” I highlight three interventions that I think would fit in P12 and higher education organizations.
- Amplify the contributions of female colleagues. Our blogs have addressed the ways in which women can be treated in meetings so it’s essential that members of underrepresented groups lift up one another (this also extends to people of color and the LGBTQ community). Provide proper attribution for new ideas and repeat as necessary so that it’s clear to listeners that substantial contributions come from a diverse group of individuals.
- Pay attention to social configurations in the [organization] that expose women to fraught situations. This is basic bystander intervention applied to our professional settings. If there’s an aggressive or unsafe person – especially one who has the advantage of power or position – find ways to insert yourself or extract the individual so that she stays safe and the focus stays on her work.
- Think about the example that you set. Do you emphasize balance and rest in your life? Or do you establish clear boundaries for your work so that you get to live a full and meaningful life that includes work? Women can be subject to different sets of expectations than their male colleagues and also tend to work the “second shift” at home. If you have best practices for balance, share those with your female colleagues as often as you share work tips.
Bonus! This work is not just for women. There are numerous ways in which men can support gender equality, too. Here are seven tips!