Can I Have It All

by Anuranjita Kumar

  I also recall at a time earlier in my career, when I was approached by a senior HR colleague to review a global role. To be candid, I was worried and slightly sceptical about the role. I don’t wish to generalise but I am aware that sometimes I can get into a shell of anxiety in any transition situation especially when one may not be clear on the way forward. He probably had taken more risks in his life and found me suitable for the role based on my capabilities. A global role with no global exposure at the onset could be tough so I was confused about my fit and expressed my anxiety to him. He helped draw out the issues that were bothering me. We worked it through by having a short project prior to me signing up, that gave me the much-needed comfort to take a leap of faith. He taught me how to take risks and I think my being explicit about my discomfort helped him understand the issues that could be worked through. So my advice is: talk. Don’t assume you are not good enough, don’t be shy. Men don’t always get subtleties; you need to tell them what works for you at work and what does not.

  As data of any gender-diversity study will tell us, board rooms are male-dominated, which clearly enables them to set the tone. If more women strive to get there, then they can become part of the system to change it. As more women get into the workforce, they can help work through the prevailing conscious or unconcious biases, alongside their male colleagues who are willing to extend their support and become a part of the solution. Men can play a key role in fostering a respectful and equal work environment for their female colleagues.

  LEADERSHIP IS GENDER-NEUTRAL

  Collaboration, co-operation and support from all around propel you forward. However, as I gravitated towards leadership roles, it became apparent to me that leadership is gender-neutral. It is capability and competence-driven. What is very critical to remember at this stage is that the competition gets tougher. Men don’t have it easy either – even if they define the rules. When I compare my journey with my husband, I don’t see him having an easier ride at work just because he belongs to the opposite sex. He has to deal with his own fears, anxieties, politics and dynamics. He may also be faced with more aggression than me. It finally boils down to your professional commitment and value creation while managing organisation dynamics.

  My own experience has been that leadership is a tough journey. There is healthy as well as unhealthy competition, subtle or obvious politics, which I have elaborated upon earlier. Credibility built on past track-records, navigation of the matrix, sponsorship and support – all of this is needed to move forward by both men and women. At senior levels, the quality of talent is very good and most people have reached there because they are exceptional. They know the game and hence the competition benchmarks are at a much higher level and fairly complex. Whereas all individuals deal with this at senior levels, charting your path is challenging for both genders in different ways

  SUMMARY

  Collaboration in different forms is a partnership that provides the needed support for us to consolidate our experiences and move forward in our leadership journey. Key stakeholders and work colleagues, teams, managers and mentors are essential pillars of the ecosystem where we nurture our career. Managing these relationships is essential. Some key relationships to focus on are:

  – Collaboration is a function of support your give and you get. The quality of this depends on your attitude and behaviour. Being optimistic and hopeful keeps you forward-focused and on track. Being flexible helps you adapt to change. Self-assurance to be able to manage the environment in an inclusive way is the key.

  – Manager: Each manager is a product of what he/she has managed in the past and so educating him/her to know how you specifically work, will help manage this relationship constructively. Every relationship needs a bit of learning and unlearning on both sides. Give it time and trust and it does develop.

  – Direct reports/team: There are individuals who may have varied views about working with men and women bosses. The best way to manage it is to get them to focus on you as a good leader. Respect has to be earned by imbibing the right leadership behaviour and building your credibility through actions.

  – Peers and stakeholders: Once friends, as you move up, your peers will be seen as your competitors and might also start behaving so. Take a broader view of the situation and zoom out. Create a network of support to tide yourself over tough situations. Provide and then seek. They may have traversed a different path to the same journey; just leverage.

  – Mentors: Seek mentors and look at every situation or feedback objectively. Focus on learning and leverage their advice to crack the code. Men can be great mentors especially in a male-dominated environment.

  – Charity begins at home: It is as much a collaboration effort with your own spouse. Choose your partner carefully… someone who understands your views, aspirations and respects your will to grow as well. A partner willing to share the family responsibilities, will help you balance your personal and professional journey. It needn’t be a juggling act only for women. A lot depends on how you set the rules of the game with your partner. Be respectful of each other’s choices and careers and be the biggest support to each other.

  – Men have key roles to play in a woman’s journey. Have a professional disposition while working with your male colleagues. Every society has a certain way of reacting to a manwoman work relationship. Men have been in this arena longer than women so they do or will need to understand. They can support the challenges that women are going through to make a mark, they can be the best guides available. Be open to reach out to them.

  8 CROSSING OVER

  future work trends

  CROSSING OVER

  As economies and social norms evolve, they make a significant impact on the landscape of the workplace. In these changing times, the need for engaging more women at work is being felt acutely around the globe. Some societies are at a better stage of readiness to do this, while others are still getting their act together.

  As we know, women influence major decisions for their families. The new world is encouraging this decision-making to go beyond family. I recently learnt that there are now more women with driver’s licences than men, in some of the world’s largest developed economies. Small steps… but I believe that this will transition into an increasing trend of more women in the driving seat at work as well. Likewise, in education, women graduates have outpaced men not only in numbers but also in performance. The future talent pipeline for the world is taking on a much more feminine hue to have a more balanced way of working together. Current trends are indicative of a high level of awareness on the part of both men and women to foster this. Organisations are trying to make an effort to be more inclusive and woman-friendly. By no means is the journey complete as the larger ecosystem of social norms has to change too. This will take time, though we seem to be headed in the right direction. We just need to persist so that our future generations inherit a richer and more diverse legacy and culture.

  Among the other big changes impacting the workplace is the rise of the millennial generation. The generation’s women who are entering the workforce, are often bolder and more courageous about the choices they make, not allowing themselves to be limited by prevailing biases. They are now not only learning to work around the stereotypes but also look them firmly in the eye and challenge them. Social media has created the much-needed awareness and connectivity among the youth to take a stand and speak out about their expectations from society, the political system, the government and workplace. Globally, we are witnessing that not only young women, but more and more young men are also becoming conscious and are active in providing women with the support and space they deserve to flourish in.

  WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP? LEADERSHIP IS ABOUT…

  Future of work for women, may entail new or balanced attributes for successful leaders. This may help to have more women in senior roles on the board, more women returning to their workplace after a break, more dual careers with a better understanding enviro
nment with a lot of this being powered by technology.

  In the past, leadership skill sets were defined, suiting more men leaders as they have been more visible given the numbers at the top. Many of these attributes may not have been stylistically suited to how women behaved or led. With more women getting the opportunity and persisting to stay in the pipeline, the paradigm of traditional ‘alpha’ leadership is changing albeit a bit slowly. This is because the critical mass of a diverse leadership with more gender diversity has not been built up as yet. As the leadership of the future takes on many more versatile shades, it is up to women leaders to firmly grip the brush and colour the canvas with the shades that suit them best!

  Some of these traits will be defined differently and will make better leaders out of both men and women. I have seen effective women exhibit some of these skills mentioned below, differently yet successfully, (even though these are relevant for both men and women leaders).

  – Communication: In a meeting, most effective women may remain feminine yet assertive. They may not be as loud as their male colleagues but are able to modulate the tone of their voice with authority to get the audience to listen to them. The ability to communicate clearly, objectively and with authority, takes women a long way in their leadership journey. You do not have to always shout to be heard!

  – Team Management: Due to their collaborative style, partly driven by upbringing (not to stereotype that men are not collaborative!), women are often able to take teams along well with less ego hassles. This becomes an important differentiator as they rise to the top. This makes it easier to galvanise support on the ground.

  – Conflict management approach: Again, due to their emphasis on relationships, women may be prone to manage conflict situations with more empathy and sensitivity. Likewise they may not abrade others too much in a given conflict situation, thus strengthening the relationship in the long run. This balance is an effective tool in the management tool repertoire for any leader.

  – Multi-tasking: There is much research that substantiates multi-tasking is key to leadership. Women are far better at multi-tasking than men. It will be an important focus for any leader as they enhance the depth and breadth of their role.

  – Facilitative and integrative style: Holding a team together or families together requires an effective leader to have high emotional intelligence. A leader’s role is to maximise the potential of their teams without really demanding it, but facilitating it. Good leaders, be it men or women, admit it in case they don’t have an answer but they usually know where to get it from and are not shy to ask for help.

  – Decision-making: In the Volatile, Complex, Uncertain and Ambiguous (VUCA) world, not all variables will be under our control and we may not always have all data available for a decision making. Often women tend to rely on intuition. Intuitive judgement depends on how you look at the big picture and tie that up with experiential learning. Both men and women can be effective at that if they are able to reflect and draw upon their intuition rather than only applying their analytical thinking all the time.

  – Balanced risks: Power can be addictive. It can provide the adrenaline rush which people get used to. The urge to keep this going and gaining more prominence may prompt some leaders to take undue risks, the fallouts of these can be fatal. Some risk is good for learning and growth. However a splattering of conservatism is pragmatic and it will be the much-needed focus in the new world. This may come naturally to some while others will need to hone it. I have seen that this conservative streak does lend that balance to decision-making in the boardroom. In my experience, women tend to bring this balance often.

  MORE WOMEN IN BOARDS

  Recently, there has been a lot of talk about how many women are/should be on company boards. Various countries have different laws, policies or guidelines. It ranges from fifty per cent of women in the board in Nordics and Belgium to one woman mandated in the boardrooms in India. Do we need a law to make this happen? Is this positive discrimination? Does this work?

  There is a case for gender diversity on boards as women bring in a different perspective to problems. The way they think and analyse a problem and consequently the solution which they come up, may be a different one. A splattering of these different perspectives will help the board with key decisions in a more balanced and measured way.

  Fortune 500 companies with the highest representation of women board directors attained significantly higher financial performance, on an average, than those with the lowest representation of women board directors, according to Catalyst’s most recent report, The Bottom Line: Corporate Performance and Women’s Representation on Boards.

  The report found higher financial performance for companies with higher representation of women board directors in three important measures:

  – Return on Equity: On an average, companies with the highest percentages of women board directors out-performed those with the least, by fifty three per cent.

  – Return on Sales: On an average, companies with the highest percentages of women board directors out-performed those with the least, by forty two per cent.

  – Return on Invested Capital: On an average, companies with the highest percentages of women board directors outperformed those with the least, by sixty six per cent.

  The co-relation between gender diversity on boards and corporate performance can also be found across most industries – from consumer discretionary to information technology.

  SECOND CAREERS

  There has been an increasing number of women passing out of colleges and business schools year after year. Consequently, there is a positive trend with a higher number of women entering the corporate world as well.

  Focus has now moved to maximising the leadership potential of women and their retention at their workplace. Retention is still challenging for women at the middle level where domestic dilemmas become paramount. This is the time when maternity strikes or sometimes ageing parents have to be looked after. Rightfully, women may take a short-term career break to manage this phase of life. However, I know a lot of these women would want to resume work post this challenging personal phase. Time is not static, circumstances change and many women who may have taken breaks to attend to their domestic responsibilities like that of child-bearing, child rearing and care for the elderly, may be in positions where such responsibilities have eased out, with children going to senior schools or colleges. Hence, after a few years, they may not have any compelling reasons on the domestic front that led them to a career break. Talented career women are aware of their potential and importantly have the will to return to work. As a result we now see an increasing interest and attention to second careers for returning professionals/women after a break.

  I have met many senior women who were in challenging roles like a trader or an investment banker. At a point in life, they felt compelled by personal circumstances to give up working while in other cases they willingly took a break. With these groups, some of them crave to get back to work once their circumstances have changed. They want to contribute through their extraordinary talent. Sadly, they just don’t know how! They are unsure of being hired back, they are unsure of what they can do, given the different professional environment. There are a host of dilemmas they face!

  I have many ex-colleagues and friends who have or are trying to embark on a second career journey and I applaud them for their courage. Their drivers range from being financially independent to self-actualisation. In my observation, the successful ones who made it back, have exhibited the following characteristics:

  – Very clear and driven about wanting to get back to work. Motivation needs to be strong, whatever may be the reason. This is extremely helpful given that integrating back into the work environment is exciting but also challenging so you need a strong intrinsic drive. There cannot be any half measures in this regard. Embarking on a new career journey is no different from starting your career! Think of all the effort that went into it.

  – Before e
mbarking on this journey, they had inspected the external environment and also gauged their own capabilities. Essentially, they prepared themselves by understanding the job market, studying the work trends, companies or sectors that are of interest, engaging with search consultants and job portals. They reviewed these against their interests and preferences to pick the right opportunities.

  – They explored and sought ways to reskill themselves proactively so that their integration back at work can be smoother. Learning and unlearning – both are key components of success for women seeking a second career. In a career break of six months to a few years, both internal and external environment in your preferred choice of work would have changed dramatically. Any prospective employer will be respectful of your efforts to study and reskill yourself. It also demonstrates your seriousness and commitment of your intent to return to work.

  – They got out there and renewed their network. Serious, second-career contenders reach out for support and connect with people who know them or they feel should know of their interest and capabilities. Being visible makes a statement of your availability. More connections enhance the probability of finding a suitable slot.

  – They had a clear idea about the kind of assignments that they sought. I have had some women friends reach out for advice on how to get back to work. Some are open to anything so long as there is some professional development and financial support, while a few others have a better idea of what they want. It is evident that women who know what they want, get it much faster. Getting out in the job market and being open to any role is not a great strategy or a positioning of self and your skill set. Being open to various opportunities within an area of interest may be a better way forward.