Anshu Arora
I was approached recently by a prospective client who asked me to design a training intervention for ‘only-women-employees’ of their organisation. Her brief was that they need to learn how to be confident in the board room and communicate with confidence. My question to her was, why only women?
Everyone in the organisation needs to be coached on handling the C-Suite room. Is there a special reason? I asked. Why is this being planned only for women? The answer was – women don’t feel confident. They are always worried about what the leaders will think. Will I be understood the way I want? Will I have a disadvantage because I am a woman? Do I have to try harder, because I am a woman?
Here’s my ask: Are these questions not weighing up in the minds of the male employees and partners of the organisation who are getting ready to face the board room? When a male employee prepares to make a strategy pitch, is he not worried whether his plan will resonate with the leaders or not? Is he not equally unsure of his idea being accepted? Does he not worry about power dressing and creating an impact?
The answer is – YES! Yes indeed! The need for being confident and sure in any setting is not gender based, rather individual based.
This women’s day, I want us women to look at ourselves as INDIVIDUALS first. One with abundant capabilities, skills and knowledge. How about we prepare, equip, compete and win? How about we don’t look at the possibility of a difficulty just because we are women?
During my research with the C-Suite, I stepped into the shoes of leaders and decision makers. I upfront asked them this question – does the gender of the person speaking to you in a board room matter?
You will be delighted to know that I received a consistent answer across different genders, age brackets, experience and nationalities. Each one said, “NO, we never look at the gender. We are always focussing on WHAT is being said, what is the STRENGTH of the content, how well is it RESEARCHED, how is it being PRESENTED and if the person is driven by PASSION.” No one said, that they looked at the gender of the presenter.
The question, therefore to ask is: Is this all built in our heads? Do women overthink this?
Well, it is a fact that men and women bring different perspectives and approaches to the floor. As an Executive Coach, I always try to team up with a male co-coach, because I feel advantaged by a different perspective and we both end up supporting our coachee in a better way. Each gender undoubtedly brings in a different perspective.
Yes, women are good at multi-tasking and there are many research findings that highlight that women tend to excel more at soft skills than their male counterparts. High levels of self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and the ability to deal with conflict make women valuable, especially in leadership positions.
However, there is no disqualification that men experience on all of these fronts too. I have worked with empathetic and articulate male leaders. I have experiences with highly compassionate and equal opportunity providing male leaders too.
As someone who has spent 26 years facilitating and coaching, I feel, women must focus on self-development as individuals and not as women. This piece is based on what I observed in successful women around me. How they amped up their game, especially at work.
In a recent interaction with a female lead of an organisation, I found great value in what she learnt from the former CEO of 7-Eleven: the legendary James. W. Keyes. She said that she has etched in her brain the three mantras that James. W. Keyes highlighted.
1. CEO means – Change Equals Opportunity
Change is the only constant in today’s world. The sooner a woman realises that, the faster she would be able to pace her career. Successful women view change not as a hurdle but as a catalyst for improvement.
Changes, whether in career or personal life can be viewed as a chance to innovate and grow. Adopting this mindset has allowed women to approach life’s many fluctuations with a proactive and positive attitude.
2. Preparation equals confidence
As a speaker coach, I swear by the power of preparation. I have seen average speakers deliver near perfect talks with high levels of preparation. Women need to remember, if it’s critical, it will need preparation, irrespective of the gender. It is a fact that careful preparation sharpens your perceptions and gives you great confidence. The more homework you do, the more spontaneous, confident, and relaxed you are. Ladies, you want to make a statement? Make it with your level of preparation, research, detailing and passion. No compromise there!
I strongly believe that we also get better by being with people who are better than us. As they say: If you find someone smarter than you, work with them. Don’t compete with them. If we can be a sharp observer and notice what makes things work for someone else and feel that it can resonate with our own style and value system, there is absolutely no reason why we must not take the best from whoever crosses our path.
3. Clarity through simplicity
This lady in question and I were contemplating the joy of simplicity over a cup of coffee, when she recalled a peer from her early work years, who used to google up fancy word replacements after she had written an email. She said, she learnt words like ubiquitous, supplant and ascendancy from this “let’s make it fancy” friend at work.
By definition, simplicity means being easy to understand or do, or, in the words of Merriam-Webster, “the state of being simple, uncomplicated or uncompounded”. How many of us think about keeping it simple.
“I’m sorry I wrote you such a long letter, I didn’t have time for a short one.” Blaise Pascal, a French philosopher and scientist, is the one attributed to saying this iconic line that most writers are familiar with. I have noticed that people complicate unnecessarily. You don’t prove a point with complex words or overdoing anything. And never at all if and because you are a woman. Clarity about what you want, where you want to reach and how you want to get there in the most simple and elegant manner is all that a woman needs. Spend time in getting that clarity, rather than making the output look fancy!
It summarises to three Cs – Change, Confidence and Clarity – that can lead to an evolved woman, whether she is a working professional or a homemaker. She is second to none, not because of her gender. Let us consistently work towards maintaining an equitable world, one that looks as the knowledge, skills, passion, attitude and adaptability as the criteria for favouring one over the other. Discrimination, bias and obstacles will always exist. There cannot be a world sans these. Whether we let these impact us is completely in our hands.
In the words of George Eliot, “It is never too late to be what you might have been.”