It s time to redefine the gender concept of ambition .

Mondo Technology Updated on 2024-02-09

GoIn the fall, McKinsey's Women in the Workplace report found that women still face barriers in transitioning from entry-level to managerial positions. This problem – like a "gap" on the career ladder – hinders women's progress and leads to persistent gender gaps in senior leadership positions. This trend is most frightening for women of color, who have seen their previous gains plummet over the past year.

As coaches and advisors who support multinational companies in their efforts to develop and retain female talent, we know why this is happening. The workplace is brimming with male-centric ambitions, with paths and rhythms that strain with multiple demands at life stages, including child-rearing, caring for the elderly, and housework, which fall disproportionately on women. Those who are unable or unwilling to obey this blueprint will be disqualified. Last December, Wayfair CEO Niraj Shah conveyed this idea to employees, encouraging them to work harder and longer. In his now-infamous "Wayfair memo," he wrote, employees must figure out how to balance hard work with other demands. "Everyone deserves a good personal life – everyone manages it in their own way – and ambitious people will find ways to blend and balance the two. ”

When women slow down to build a work-life balance, they are often perceived as lacking in ambition. The switch in their supervisors' minds became "off" and they stopped engaging them in important projects, meetings, and conversations. But those who follow the blueprint are often overwhelmed by role overload: they face structural disadvantage and burnout, struggling to manage their many professional and personal responsibilities. This dilemma has been exacerbated by the rise of "voracious work", where income increases disproportionately if you agree to work longer hours but are less flexible.

It is at this point that we find that many women drop out of the race for senior leadership positions. As Claudia Goldin's Nobel Prize-winning research shows, greedy work forces heterosexual couples with children to choose between wealth creation (which can happen if one of the couples works long hours and is inflexible) and gender equality (both choose flexible work).

Women often make sacrifices for the sake of couples, revert to flexible work, and act as the primary caregiver for the family. If climbing the career ladder comes at the expense of a healthy work-life balance, many women don't think leadership is worth it. They are still ambitious, but they cannot and will not succumb to drudgery.

Whenever a woman leaves a company because their potential is overlooked, or because the company culture only supports a one-size-fits-all approach to achieving their ambitions, it's not only a loss for them, but also for the company they work for.

Until now, the best practice designed by companies that wanted to solve this problem was to provide flexible working hours for women. This will help, but only to a certain extent: no matter what time of day you work, the day is still only 24 hours. Women are still bound by the collective expectation that they will spend more time on housework than men.

To break this impasse, there must be a change in mindset. What women need from managers is a flexible way of growing, not time. This requires managers to measure ambition differently. These intervals should not be understood as a rejection of promotion during a career deceleration, but rather as an inevitable and sometimes desired turning point that enables women to cope with the demands of a range of life stages.

We observe that managers promote flexible thinking about growth by:

Skilled managers don't impose a binary view – either climb up or step aside – and don't equate pace with potential. They argue that even if employees have to prioritize flexibility in the short term (as women often do), talent is still constant and worth developing. In these companies, promotion opportunities are not an ultimatum.

For example, in one of the Fortune 100 companies we supported, a senior executive spent eight years in a middle management position while raising a child. However, the experience she gained during this time gave her deep expertise, connections, and confidence that allowed her to progress quickly when the time came. When she was ready, her acceleration came, but her pace didn't deprive her of the opportunity to grow. She now often tells others that being able to present herself in this way is essential to her career and family.

Rather than punishing women for their lack of stamina or drive, savvy companies recognize how systemic barriers, such as the gender division of labor in the family, can overwhelm women at critical moments in their careers. These companies give women a sense of when to accelerate and don't force them to drive at the same speed as their male colleagues.

We tutored a pregnant mid-level manager from a Fortune 100 company who had a small child at home. Her manager wants to promote her, but she hesitates, which seems to frustrate him. But then she made it clear to him that her hesitation was not because of her ambitions, but because of her living circumstances, and he began to understand. His own wife had struggled with stereotypes during her pregnancy, and he didn't want the manager to go through the same.

Therefore, he proposed an alternative. "I know you can achieve a lot," he told her. "I don't want this to be an obstacle for you. He advised her to be strategic about the projects she chose to work on and encouraged her to turn down certain opportunities later in pregnancy. At the same time, they began to have regular professional conversations, which reassured her that when she was ready, she would be able to continue climbing the management ladder.

Companies that nominate women to participate in development programs and select them to perform visible tasks with no strings attached can keep women engaged, allow them to grow, and ensure that they feel valued. These companies do not make the pursuit of promotion a condition for gaining power and influence.

At a game studio, where leaders were working to fix a "broken rung," one of our talented clients, with two young children, asked to narrow her scope. Her supervisor realized her value and potential and agreed, but arranged for her to stay on the studio's leadership team. A year later, the head of the studio invited her to serve as his chief of staff, a key role that provided her with visible recognition and career advancement while satisfying her need for personal flexibility.

Companies that take a smart, agile approach to growth know that high-potential junior women need more than just seeing women taller than them succeed at work. They also need to see that they balance the gender demands in their lives in a way that allows them to manage both work and family. These women are role models, and they are key to motivating and retaining women with high career potential.

Unfortunately, there are few examples in this area. This is partly due to what is sometimes referred to as "mother-wall bias," which is when women are perceived as less capable once they become pregnant, on maternity leave, or adjust their schedules. For fear of triggering this bias, many women hide their motherhood at work – which indirectly reinforces men's ambition patterns.

A case in point: we tutored a lady whose colleague recently told her, "I realize that you never talk about your kids, and that's really cool." This quote hit our customers hard. She realized that in order to be successful at work, she thought it would be easier to connect with her colleagues without talking about children – a realization that shocked her.

Women tend to receive less actionable feedback from their supervisors than men. The less guidance a manager has, the fewer opportunities there are for learning, which can diminish dynamic growth opportunities at work. As one of our clients recently told us, "I see feedback as an investment in me because my manager sees potential for my growth." They give me feedback because they see that I can do something with it. Strong feedback allows women to grow in their roles, even if they are temporarily off the path of promotion. It's a crucial retention tool for managers who want to encourage high-performing women through practical and psychological well-being.

What does ambition look like? When we asked our clients about their ambitions, they stated that they strive to set and achieve challenging goals, exceed their own and others' expectations, and pursue leadership roles that connect them to the forces and resources that drive change. A black-and-white approach to measuring ambition by time and intensity, while ignoring the broader context of women, simply fails to tap into key talent and potential.

Moreover, young women who observe senior colleagues succeeding by sacrificing their personal lives will believe they have to make the same deal – and more worryingly, if they fail to do so, they simply don't have ambitions.

For a long time, women had no choice but to succumb to this masculine blueprint. But today's smart companies and managers recognize that this blueprint is holding many high-performing women back from advancing and growing in their careers, and that in the long run, when properly supported by a flexible growth mindset, they will have the vital skills and experience to serve the organizations they serve. These women are ambitious. They want to advance their careers along a flexible and sustainable path, taking into account the disproportionate demands placed on them outside the office. It's time for them to be able to do that.

It's a change that we're all going to benefit from.

Insight Finance

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