The Paradox of being a Female Leader
People who know me well know that I write sparingly on issues related to female leadership. While I support initiatives around female founders and leadership strongly, I’ve always felt the best thing women can do for other women is build great, game changing companies. With MOVE Guides, we are building the first enterprise software company in a global industry where more than $100bn is spent annually. MOVE Guides vision is to make it easy for companies to attract and deploy talent globally and my personal vision is for a world where people are mobile, borders are porous, and demographic and economic imbalances between developed and developing countries start to disappear. It’s big and it is bold and it is an example I want to set for aspiring female (and male) leaders.
Watching Hillary Clinton’s “pneumonia-gate” over the last week, I felt compelled to share some thoughts on behalf of all us female founders, CEOs and leaders. We all may work too hard sometimes and feel like we are exposed to a double standard that doesn’t let us slow down (rightly or wrongly). Personally, I have always felt that to be a respected and great female CEO you have to be really exceptional: Work harder. Know more facts. Have a bigger vision. Be tougher. Handle more. Be more interesting at the Board dinner. This may be an insecurity that many of us female leaders face, or it may just be the reality of a world where women lead 4% of Fortune 500 companies and 3% of venture funded companies beyond Series A.
This feeling actually doesn’t bother me, one because like many entrepreneurs I am motivated by changing the status quo. I have a poster hanging in my office that reminds me everyday that “I like being the underdog. It heightens focus.” For me, being a female founder and CEO is no different than being the first software player in a market of managed services; or fighting a “David vs. Goliath” battle against entrenched incumbents; or being a UK company raising money in America; or championing free movement of people in an era of xenophobia. It is all part of having an ambitious vision and doing everything humanly possible to make it happen.
But I’ve also learned through the years that being a female founder and CEO is actually different than those other things because people are constantly looking for you not to be tough enough to handle it all. To handle the attacks from the incumbents; to negotiate hard on deals; to pound the drum with a vision others think is crazy day in and day out; to make tough, contrarian and (at the end of day) unilateral decisions with imperfect information. It can be hard not to take the opinions and sidebars personally some days. Society expects women to be empathetic and nurturing, it does not naturally expect us to be tough and indefatigable. So naturally we female founders and CEO’s want to prove everyone wrong and set an example for other women.
We choose to work really hard. And frankly, many of the female leaders I’ve seen are absolutely amazing. Not absolutely amazing female leaders just absolutely amazing. Period. Compared to anyone. It is why many of us hate Board quotas and female-focused initiatives. We don’t want the caveat, we don’t need it.
Take one of my angel investors, as an example. She was the CEO of two companies she founded at the same time, prior to becoming an astoundingly prolific and successful angel investor. Like Jack Dorsey, she brought one of her companies public. Unlike him, she did it five months pregnant and just for good measure she called the banker’s, post IPO, to tell them that she was not in fact “fat” during the roadshow, but pregnant. I think about this story every single time I am tired or sick. If she can do that, surely I can work through the flu. Then she decided to take on two other mammoth tasks — making the UK education culture entrepreneurial and building a bridge between London and Silicon Valley. I know some amazing male investors (who I respect and admire deeply), but few of them have been the CEO of two companies at the same time, IPO’d one while pregnant, made meaningful impacts on a national government and been recognized by the Queen.
When you found a startup, run a big company or run for President, you work yourself into the ground by definition. As a woman, you always have a segment of people who are waiting for you to crack, so you often try to handle even more. You always have something to prove. You always want to show the naysayers that you can do it and give the aspiring young girls an example of why they can do it too. Sometimes, your body can’t physically handle it. Sometimes you cry. Sometimes you scream at your team. And sometimes you get pneumonia.
It doesn’t mean you’re weak or unhealthy or unfit to run a company or country. It means you’re trying as hard as humanly possible to do a good job for everyone who works for you, buys from you, invests in you, believes in you and most importantly for many of us, aspires to be like you. It means you’re striving to execute a vision that you really believe in and that you don’t want anyone to know you’re struggling or question your tenacity. It means that, despite being part of a group of less than 5% of this or that, you’re actually also human. Being human, driven and one of a very small group of female leaders means it is REALLY hard to ask for help, especially after years of doing your best not to show you need any.
Politics aside, “pneumonia-gate” doesn’t bother me. Sure, Hillary didn’t tell the press she was sick and probably should have right away. But, I don’t tell my customers or Board members when I have the flu and have a big meeting. Instead I go in the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror and tell myself I can do it. It’s the same thing I used to do when I had a broken bone and a big gymnastics competition, you power through. You’re tough and tenacious because you’re committed and you care, not because you’re untrustworthy. And I’d rather have (and be) a leader like this; one that does everything she possibly can for the company or country and people she leads, than the alternative. Caring about what you do and caring about the people who you represent is what makes great leaders and we need great leaders — male or female in the world.
