People Who Self-Promote Get Paid More — Why Women Are Missing The Mark
Nearly twelve years ago, I was sitting on a promotion panel, selecting the leaders who were going to be promoted in the organization. I was the only woman of color in the room. We were on a break, and my mentor stepped into the room and said that the promotion results for my level were going to be released shortly.
This was a level that a lot of African Americans struggled to get to and I said, “Well… I’m not nervous and know that I made it with 100% certainty and confidence.”
Why? Because I studied the plan and had 13 mentors. I took the hard jobs, had more degrees than a thermometer, and built a strong reputation in the organization and the oil/hazmat emergency response industry.
At the time, I was a Congressional Fellow, working for Congressman Elijah Cummings, and everyone who was selected for those limited and exclusive positions was promoted.
So, why would I be nervous about getting promoted? I wasn’t.
Then I said, “I can’t wait to see my name on the announcement.” You would have thought I wore a fresh mink coat to an animal rights rally. The mostly white male room was appalled and they were disgusted that I would make such a statement. My mentor, an African American man, who tried his best to get me to be less edgy in my opinions, was embarrassed.
He said, “Christy you need to be more humble, and you don’t know for sure that your name will be on the list.” I disagreed sternly and leaned back in my chair and said, “Yes, it will. I’ll wait.”
This is one of the three reasons why women don’t self-promote or brag on themselves.
Women Want To Be Liked
You want to be liked so you go out of the way to make other people comfortable. At a young age, girls are taught to be nice, to play nice, to share, and to be good. However, boys will be boys.
At a very early age, you were taught to surrender what you want to make other people happy. When you enter the workforce, you go out of your way to make other people comfortable. Challenges arise when you win because that makes people uncomfortable.
Let’s face it, people are generally uncomfortable with winners, but they are REALLY uncomfortable when women and minorities win. They say, “Why are you so braggadocious?” (I’ve never heard someone ask a man this question.)
“You think too highly of yourself.”
“You need to be more humble.”
“You don’t want to be seen as one of those.”
On the contrary, when a man wins, they celebrate each other. They go out for drinks, pat each other on the back, and loudly celebrate each other.
“If you have a strong ego and something good happens to an acquaintance of yours, it makes you feel bad… The ego thinks something has been taken away from you because somebody else has received something good. It’s a complete illusion, but that’s the madness of the ego.” — Eckhart Tolle
When you win, and it makes others uncomfortable, and it makes you extremely uncomfortable because your nature is to be liked, and there is where the most significant challenge lies. When you change to make people comfortable with your winning, it actually creates pain for you. Over time, you start to associate winning with pain, and then you stop moving forward and excelling because it’s too painful.
A Harvard Business Review noted men rated their performance 33 percent higher than equally performing women. Their self-promotion paid off because the people who rated their performance at a greater level were more likely to be hired and offered higher pay.
This can be equally true for women, but why are we so averse to self-promotion?
You Hide Your Accomplishments
Ambitious women are programmed to win and to keep excelling even if they are bleeding from 1000 knives in their back. If this is you, do you keep winning, but when you get the award or plaque, you downplay it or hide it?
When you don’t own your accomplishments and who you are, you become passive-aggressive. You’re angry because people don’t see your greatness, but people see you how you see yourself and if you’re hiding who you truly are, is it any wonder they don’t acknowledge it?
You Stop Taking Risks
When you don’t own your achievements and greatness, because it’s uncomfortable to others and yourself, you stop taking risks. You make excuses for why you aren’t further ahead in your career.
You’ll say, “I’m too junior to get this position.”
“That will take me getting promoted over my boss. That will never happen.”
“They aren’t going to like that I stepped out and applied for a different position, so I’ll just stay where I am.”
Ladies, let’s be clear… If you want to get to the next level in your career and make it to the C suite, you have to be willing to take risks. You have to be confident in yourself and your ability to perform at certain levels.
If you flicker in your self-belief, you’re doomed to living life at a level lower; when you know with every fiber of your being, you should be higher than where you are.
You are self-sabotaging your success because you want to be liked. Because you want to make other people comfortable with your success. Because you want other people to feel like you’re a team player and that you care about their feelings.
CUT IT OUT.
Great leaders love other great leaders. People who are stable in their energy. Those that are confident, self-assured, and self-reliant. Those that they don’t have to keep picking up off the floor or spend endless amounts of time resuscitating and trying to get them to see their greatness.
Women in leadership have very complex issues with owning our greatness and being able to clearly see our value to the world because we’ve been taught to surrender everything we believe to be true about ourselves, so we can be liked.
Have the courage to own your greatness. Become self-aware of how you’re showing up and how you are creating the undesired result in your life. Start a journey of personal development and get around some people who will inspire you to be a greater version of yourself.
Become comfortable with other people being uncomfortable with you owning your strength, charisma, power, and beauty and your life will never be the same for the best.
Christy Rutherford is a high-level business consultant and advisor to executive leaders. Her work closes the promotion gap for exceptional women. Christy is a Harvard Business School Alumna, certified Executive Leadership Coach from Georgetown University and 6-time best-selling author. In addition, she has been interviewed by and featured in Forbes three times. For more details, visit www.christyrutherford.com
