Five Ways Tech Leaders Can Support Women On Their Teams Finding Their Own Voice
June 14, 2022
Sociologist, Mars Desert Research Station commander + Study Author, Inga Popovaitė. Photo: Inga Popovaitė
“Research by Victoria Brescoll at Yale shows that “when male executives spoke more often, they were perceived to be more competent, but when female executives spoke more often, they were given lower competence ratings.” And these were executives! No wonder so many women are extremely reluctant to self-promote.”
The gist:
While it may be true that “women have the tendency to want and expect their work to speak for itself,” it’s also true that “being vocal at work has always been a minefield for women.”
It doesn’t help that on top of that, “data from the last two years shows that the move to online and ‘hybrid’ work has only made things worse.”
Judith Spitz’s Forbes article has five suggestions for tech co’s and “every executive can do to support the women on their teams finding their own voice,” and what barrier thry break down.
Choose female spokespeople. Rotate team spokespeople, so women are consistently given that opportunity along with everyone else.
Be curious about confidence. When “a woman in the workplace ‘seems’ like she lacks confidence, get curious.”
Facilitate inclusive meetings. Use rules + tools “both in-person and online,” such as, “signal that you’d like to hear from everyone,” and “post-meeting feedback forms to invite asynchronous contributions.”
Amplify and attribute women’s ideas. Not only find “opportunities to amplify” women’s voices, “correctly attribute women’s ideas.”
Make sure there are multiple women in the room. This “requires that you have enough women on staff that having more than one woman in every meeting is easy to achieve,” which of course is a mandate in an of itself.
Why?
It’s not only for “the sake of…diversity and inclusion, but also productivity and profitability” that savvy, sustainable companies will need for the world of work 2.0.
Connect with the Forbes post here