Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors

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Women, Aspire to the Level You Choose

My friend Alyse Forcellina posted the below question in response to an excellent article from Namrita Shahani Jhangiani about a challenge to professional women:

It’s not just the glass ceiling — it is often the sticky floor that women need to overcome to succeed. Just yesterday I had lunch with a ski pro. When asked about how he teaches groups of varying levels, he revealed a fascinating perspective from his 30+ years of experience. “There is one thing I can always count on … men will overestimate their abilities and women will vastly underestimate theirs.” So I ask my fellow professional women and our sponsors, how can we be more confident and aspirational?

So, as a past-time sponsor and life-time advocate, I thought I’d offer a reply.

The ski pro’s observation fits with my experience — corporate, dojo, dive-boat — men believe they can before they try and women believe after they succeed. This probably explains the 40% failure of rate of new executives, given more are men, but I digress…

In response to the question, let’s assume that high potential is the right mix of capability (can), determination (does), and aspiration (wants).

For capabilities, you need to be a Breitbart reader to believe that men are on the whole smarter than women (no link provided — protecting myself from trolls…). In my experience, it’s more than safe to say that women have at least equal intellectual capabilities as men and arguably higher emotional capabilities than men, and let’s agree that no one is physically beating anyone else up in today’s boardroom (though I always bet on the woman in any dojo sparring match…). Despite a few millennia of men being the ones educated and trained, our own sons’ generation of men (and women) seem poised to put to rest the beliefs of intellectual inequality and also truly appreciate the value of emotional capability.

As to determination — will do what it takes — I have observed, ironically, that men often do what it takes to prove that they can, while women often do what it takes to simply get it done. Given that the burden of “working parents” is still largely on the woman worker, one could argue that any successful woman is probably more determined than her equally successful male counterpart.

So if professional, potentially high-potential women are no less capable and maybe even more determined, that leaves us with aspiration.

Aspiration

Getting the promotion you don’t want is rare — so if you don’t aspire you almost certainly don’t attain. It’s been written that men either do, or are expected to, or are conditioned to aspire to career success — to want it. Women, on the other hand, often feel constrained, conflicted, or are negatively-reinforced about wanting it. Let’s add to that the theme and conflict around “having it all” (a conflict that generally never occurs to men for themselves), and we can’t be surprised how the deck is stacked against women’s confidence and aspiration.

So, to Alyse’s question:

how can we be more confident and aspirational?

One practice we recommend for confidence is visualizing or envisioning. It’s one of the oft-written practices of how pro athletes and successful business leaders see themselves being successful. If you’re not sure how, there’s a great description in Google mindfulness guru Chade-Meng Tan’s book Search Inside Yourself. It’s hard to be something you can’t imagine. It’s also useful to know your own personality. In my own research, I found some people’s confidence comes from how well they imagine they could do something, where others’ comes from assessing how well they already have done it. In Hogan-speak, we focus on factors of Adjustment, Ambition, Cautious, Bold, and Dutiful. So, to some degree, confidence is innate. But, like EQ, it can be developed. So, know yourself. Confidence counts.

And what about aspiration? I think that’s actually the “sticky floor,” but one that shifts-under-feet over time and circumstance. I have coached professional women to tend to their aspirations as much as they do their capabilities and determination. We also coach them to integrate their professional and personal lives rather than trying to live in strict boundaries. As my partner and wife Anne Altizer tells clients, “Having it all” is a false construct. “What I want and will do, now,” however, can be liberating. Anne powered through a broken back to transition from an equestrian and artist to a yoga-teaching, personal-training, holistic nutrition consultant (and owner of our firm), saying, “I didn’t know if I could do it, but I did know I wanted to do it.” So while confidence counts, aspiration counts more.

After inviting her to read this draft, Anne reflected and said, “Over the course of this life I intend to have and have done it all — but the moment I need to live in is now.”

Great advice for all of us from the highest potential woman I know.