Habits that prevent women from being leaders

Many women who are passionate about their work are embarrassed to think about a career and often do not admit that they have ambitions. But the world needs ambitious women, and why not you? This question is being asked by leadership experts Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith.

Why don’t women who do a great job strive to become even more influential, because that way they will have more opportunities to change the world for the better? Summarizing their coaching experience, the experts wrote the book “You are capable of more” (Olimp-Business, 2018), in which they identified 12 reasons that hinder a career:

1. Unwillingness to declare their achievements.
2. The expectation that your efforts will be noticed and rewarded.
3. Reassessment of professional competence.
4. Building but not using relationships.
5. Inability to enlist the support of allies.
6. Following the principle of “work above career”.
7. The perfectionist trap.
8. A painful desire to please.
9. Degradation of one’s merit.
10. Excessive emotionality, verbosity and frankness.
11. “Chewing” failures.
12. Tendency to be distracted.

Let’s take a closer look at three less obvious reasons.

Reassessment of professional competence

Many of us strive to master all the intricacies associated with work and become masters of our craft. This is a great strategy to stay in your position and … get stuck there for a long time. Sally Heljesen and Marshall Goldsmith caution that if your goal is to rise to the next level, professionalism probably won’t help.

In fact, deepening into a profession is running on the spot: you raise the bar for yourself ever higher and are always ready to make extra efforts. Meanwhile, your male colleagues take a different path: they try to do a good enough job, but their main focus is on networking and striving to become visible, which will help them move to the next level.

Experts suggest thinking of your position not only as a set of functions, but also as a bridge to what comes next. It’s rare to get promoted on the basis of excellent work alone. The reason for the promotion is likely to be that people know you and believe you can be of service at a higher level. The higher you climb, the less important it becomes to know the answers to all questions – and the more it means well-built relationships.

You cannot be an expert if your field of activity is expanding. You have less time to sort out the details. As a result, you have to trust other people, and they have to trust you. And such trust is built with comprehensive interaction, and not due to attention to detail. The power of connections or acquaintances plays a big role.

Connections are usually built as you move around within the company, perform various tasks, find allies and keep in touch with them. Another type of power is the power of personal authority or charisma, the power that comes from the confidence you instill in others. Competence and connections will help to gain personal authority, but there is always some other component: the ability to present yourself, an original mindset, a way of speaking and listening that inspires confidence.

So at some point in your career, it’s worth putting less emphasis on competence and learning how to use other types of authority if you’re determined to rise to the level of a senior executive.

Excessive emotionality, verbosity and frankness

Of course, both men and women experience a variety of emotions at work. But, according to researchers, the fair sex is more likely to show anxiety, annoyance, discontent or fear. For openly expressing negative experiences, women are often called capricious or “overly emotional.”

It is important to be aware of your feelings and accept them. Nevertheless, speaking out publicly at a time when passions are running high is not worth it. Your opinion about who is to blame can easily be distorted. You can re-evaluate your arguments. You will be seen as touchy or out of control. And certainly you will not be able to balance the reaction with what is best to do in order to get the maximum result.

The ability to feel and identify your emotions gives you strength. By reacting to what you feel, you are wasting that power. For example, realizing that you feel fear, you should not suppress it, but at the same time do not allow yourself an intonation of fear. Maintain a confident tone.

Verbosity can be due to insecurity, but often this habit also reflects your strengths. Which? For example, the gift of confidential communication and networking, a genuine concern for others, and the ability to notice important – and invisible to others – details. If you want to become effective in communication, your task is to keep these strengths and work on conciseness, focusing on the main points.

The tendency to be frank is another behavioral pattern that fails women in professional life. We often use personal information (including acknowledging our weaknesses) as a primary means of building friendships. This evokes a sense of closeness and is seen as a sign of trust.

Of course, it’s never a good idea to pretend to be someone you’re not. But the endless pursuit of sincerity can become a trap if it blurs the boundaries that most organizations still honor.

Following the principle of “work above career”

Many talented and hardworking women, having quickly risen to certain heights, stop there. They often resort to rationalization, emphasizing that many things suit them in their current work: for example, long-term relationships are convenient for them, it is pleasant to use the acquired skills. And yet deep down they are unhappy. They have to watch how colleagues who came at the same time move on, overtaking them.

Of course, you may like and suit your work very much, so the reluctance to undertake something is quite understandable. And yet, staying in one position for too long does not contribute to a sense of satisfaction and self-esteem in the long run. Slippage undermines your ability to influence results and negatively impacts your paycheck.

Why do women often get stuck? You may not have decided what you really want to do, and your insecurities are blocking your ability to take action. Or you are temperamentally averse to risk. But according to the authors’ experience, the most common reason why women put work before career is one of their most important virtues – loyalty.

Studies confirm that it is precisely because of the devotion to their immediate supervisor and team that women tend to stay longer than men in one place. Because of this virtue, it is easy to fall into a trap. In an effort to remain loyal, you may neglect the future, sacrifice ambition, and sell your skills and potential too cheaply.

What to do? Learn to build relationships with senior management and external partners – the kind of relationship that will help in further promotion. Evaluate the usefulness of work not only by how much you like it or how much you are appreciated, but also by how it will serve your long-term interests. For example, it will help you to fully develop your abilities and provide an income that will allow you to lead a fulfilling life.

Of course, your understanding of self-interest may be different. Perhaps time is more valuable to you than money. Or for you there is nothing more important than the hours spent with the family. Maybe you are looking for a career that involves solving various other tasks or opens up the opportunity to travel. Whatever the case, the first step is to understand what inspires you and act in accordance with your personal goals and values.

To learn more about these and other habits that prevent women from making a career, read the book You Can Do More by Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith (Olymp-Business, 2018).