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Female Leadership: Not Afraid to Honor Ourselves
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2018-07-25
By S. Zimmermann
  It is probably safe to assume that there is no mention of gender in any definition of leadership. Think about the fact that the world in general and the workforce in particular exists because we have a roughly 50/50 balance of male and female participants in it. Yet, despite added significance, encouragement, and promotion for women to reach for the upper echelon, there is no significant change in numbers. I say: Yet.
The same seems to be true for Tech companies, Engineering, and other related industries. HubSpot’s chief people officer Katie Burke presents her keynote during a session on the future of work at Inspirefest 2018 (see full video here) and suggests, that in order to reach for true equality in the workforce the narrative needs to change: Corporate culture is often still stuck in traditional execution – there are putative ‘male’ and ‘female’ occupations and the female ones are structurally disadvantaged and discriminated to a certain state. What if mothers and fathers equally reduced their paid work in order to care for their children? Why are such a small number of women in Chief Executive positions and equally small number of men in care professions?
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg states that women systematically underestimate their abilities and attribute their success to external factors (see full video here), whereas men attribute it to themselves. This scheme could arise out of general pressure put onto young boys to become successful and provide for a family later in life, whereas women are still assigned ‘assisting’ and ‘tending to their partner’ qualities. Maybe women do have this inherent quality of ‘nurturing’ in the sense of making others strong, thereby cutting short their own qualities. But overcoming this victimized mindset – by seemingly biological or social ascription –into a victorious one, is one challenge female leaders have to face. Equally important is to notice buzzwords such as “male dominated workspace†or “patriarchal society†and slowly, but steadily understanding that those might be make-believe and carefully constructed concepts. And here’s why:
I want you to think about someone who you met during your time growing up who majorly changed the way you perceived yourself. Somebody (be it in a personal, school- university, or early job-life) who helped you see something in yourself that he or she found worth mentioning, eligible, or validating. Luckily for me, I met more than just one of those inspiring individuals during different phases of my life. However, it took a while until those seeds, planted in positive reinforcement, came into bloom.
During that growing process, everybody, irrespective of their gender, depends on the kindness of others to bestow that value upon us. Those people who make us believe that we cannot achieve something great seem to take up more of our mental and energetic focus than those who lift us up.
Wherever this unbalance is rooted, we also need to recognize that society is organic and fluid. Neither does every man enjoy power from birth onwards and knows that he wants to become a ‘leader’ nor does every women necessarily want the whole world to know her name and achievement during the lifetime.
I strongly believe that some of the greatest leaders will always shy away from the limelight and carry out their true and beautiful vocation in the background instead of yelling the loudest and, thereby, trying to accredit to their own ‘value’.
I believe that leadership truly is rather a question of whose lives you wish to touch and how your purpose aligns with your personality. If those qualities run in sync, nobody can touch you. Instead, growth then becomes rather incidental: people can ‘smell’ if you are inauthentic and likewise trust is usually built if people grasp how fundamentally passionate you are while doing what you do. The exercised integrity and impact is what can truly make a difference in the world and positively influence our current and coming generation of female leaders.
Notice how the word influence stems from the root “influenzaâ€, which means that leaders are in fact contagious. Their positive attitude and empowerment shines a light upon others and helps illuminate the minds and lives of those surrounding them.
In a nutshell, I believe that independent of gender and upbringing, if you are able to see and validate what matters to people and let them live their lives accordingly, you have what it takes to be a leader.
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