Facing Failure: Why Resilience Must be Part of Leadership Development
By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)
“The public seems to hold the belief that the fight for parity has been won,” said Sara Manzano-Diaz, Director of the Women’s Bureau at the United States Department of Labor.
She continued, “We know that’s not the case.”
Manzano-Diaz spoke Monday afternoon the National Council for Research on Women‘s panel discussion on building the pipeline of women for leadership in the public, private, and non profit sectors. Linda Basch, President of the NCRW explained, “Today we’re exploring a particularly vexing problem… the stalled pipeline to women’s leadership.”
“When I run into young women today… many think the world is their oyster and that anything is possible,” she continued. “But a few years out, I see some frustrated and demoralized young women.”
Statistics show that females are outpacing males at almost every level during their education. Yet, women drop off the career path in their early 30s in startling numbers. The result is that only about 15-18% of leadership roles in the United States are held by women. The panel discussed possible reasons why larger numbers of women are not making it to the top layers of the leadership pyramid, while highly educated and capable women are in no short supply at its base.
One key issue panelists settled on is resilience – that today’s young women are unprepared to face adversity.
Storming Barricades and Subtle Biases
Debora Spar, President of Barnard College, moderated Monday’s panel, which included Ed Gilligan, Vice Chairman at American Express; Annalisa Jenkins, Senior Vice President, Global Health, Bristol-Myers Squibb; Ruth J. Simmons; Ruth J. Simmons, President, Brown University; and Susan Sturm, George M. Jaffin Professor of Law and Social responsibility, Columbia University Law School.
Spar laid out the problem: “…the pipeline is no longer jammed for any good reasons – reasons that we can clearly understand.” She explained that in the 40s and 50s the barriers to women in leadership were clearly obvious – women weren’t permitted to top colleges, they were prohibited from networks of power, they were openly barred from holding top positions. Those obstacles have been knocked out. But the leadership ranks are still not filled with women.
She continued, “My generation has not achieved anything close to equity. Women in their 20s and 30s are dropping out of the pipeline at roughly the same rates as my generation did.”
“We can’t storm the barricades anymore. We are dealing with much more subtle problems.” Spar pointed out that today’s issues are much more insidious and revolve around embedded biases – which are much more difficult problems to solve.
One of the issues, according to Simmons, is the “gold star” phenomenon. Girls are praised throughout their education for doing as they’re told – for being compliant. When women in the workplace dare to ask for raises or promotions, to come back to the workforce after taking time off for family responsibilities, to stand up for themselves, they face disproportionate resistance. And they don’t know how to overcome it.
Teaching Resilience – Not Compliance
Sturm said, “Too many young people, women as well, are asking themselves, ‘how can I make it happen for myself? What are the hoops and how do I jump through them?’”
She continued, “When the hoops seem to high, they opt out.”
“Coming from the gold star generation, when the performance review is not stellar, they’re crushed. How do you teach resilience without sending them to the Navy?” Spar asked Jenkins, who, before joining Bristol-Myers Squibb, was the first female physician in the British Royal Navy ever to serve at the front line in conflict.
Jenkins said that women spend too much time seeking perfection – they should realize that they don’t always have to be the best to get to the top. She said, “They feel they have to be 200% more brilliant than the most brilliant guy in the room.”
She said focusing on soft skills can help women develop resilience and leadership skills – in essence, companies should help women find ways to work smart rather than work hard.
Simmons said she believed failure is an important part of resilience. “Resilience is mostly about experience. How can you be resilient without experiencing failure? You can’t. You need someone to tell you you’re going to fail.”
She continued, “I tell students, both male and female, that I hope failure of them. They’re not always going to succeed. And I hope they can pick themselves up.”
Gilligan agreed. He said, “Resilience is confidence. Confidence is learning success and failure. Most managers don’t know how to deal when someone underneath them fails.” He suggested that the best managers are those who know how to provide a soft landing when expectations are missed – and that providing that soft landing can help build stronger leaders. He said, “How you recover defines you as a leader.”
