Coach Mentoring Ltd supports efforts to promote a more gender-balanced world. This collection of articles supporting International Women’s Day covers various topics around women’s development and mentoring.
The issue of ambition in women’s careers still remains an obstacle for some women when developing their careers. In the last two decades, many employers have shown enthusiastic commitment to gender diversity and women have made enormous strides in being able to compete on the same playing field as men at work.
But does this make women ideal workers or ‘Bulldozers’ if they dare to demonstrate the same level of vertical ambition motivation as a man? Women are 30% more likely than men to receive feedback that they are too aggressive, bossy or intimidating.
Initiatives such as mentoring and sponsor programmes have been really successful in helping erode this gender imbalance. Gender equity means fairness of treatment for women and men, according to their respective needs. Research strongly confirms mentoring to address gender equity as being an important factor in developing more women leaders.
Tiara Syndrome is a term originally developed by Carol Grohlinger and Deborah Kolb and then used by Sheryl Sandberg in her book ‘Lean in’. Sandberg feels that women often think they can be crowned with the tiara of success by keeping their heads down, working hard, over-preparing and passing all of their exams. Continue reading
A closer look at Imposter SyndromeIn my final post for International Women’s Day, I am going to consider the issue of Imposter Syndrome. This can have a dramatic impact on a woman’s ambition. It used to be thought of as the domain of the high woman achiever. However, it is a syndrome also experienced by men.
Amy Cuddy in her book ‘Presence’ talks about it being a female rather than a male issue. She says men are far less likely to talk about it. They fear social punishment for failing to conform to social stereotypes, i.e. that men are assertive and confident. Two psychologists Clance and Imes originally termed the condition from their clinical experience. They found it occurs much less frequently in men and when it does occur, it is far less intense. However, more recent research published by the International Journal of Behavioural Science in 2011, shows that 70% of men and women have experienced it at some point in their lives. Millennial’s may suffer from Imposter Syndrome even more. They have commenced their careers at a time of extreme technological pace, where there are constant comparisons on social media between peer group members.
Barriers to women’s ambitionIn my second article leading up to International Women’s Day on the 8th March 2017 I am considering how despite all the time, money and great intentions which have been put into building a more diverse talent pipeline in many organisations, there are still some basic barriers, which have not been removed and get in the way of women feeling and being more upwardly mobile. A Bain Study in 2015 illustrates that an employee’s early employment experience influences their confidence in whether to actively pursue a C-suite career or not. Some of the erosion of or challenges facing ambition come down to factors such as whether women are perceived as ‘ideal workers’, whether they are getting sufficient support from their own direct supervisor, the organisation’s leadership development process and the dearth of real role models. These types of barriers can be explored and supported through coaching and mentoring relationships. Continue reading
The issue of ambition in women’s careersWelcome to the first in a series of three articles as we lead up to International Women’s Day on the 8th March 2017, in which we consider the issue of ambition for women. Ambition still seems to be an obstacle for some women when developing their careers. Women’s presence on the Board has been proved to add competitive advantage to an organisation. Despite there being roughly the same numbers of women and men in the workforce, there is still an unbalanced ratio in favour of men in more senior leadership roles. In the last two decades, many employers have shown enthusiastic commitment to gender diversity and women have made enormous strides in being able to compete on the same playing field as men at work, so what is going on? Continue reading
