Tag Archive for: c suite conversations

Women Leaders – Walking Out or Walking Onwards?

,

For every woman at the director level that was promoted to the next level in 2021, two women directors walked out the door of their company. Women leaders are now demanding more, and leaving their companies at unprecedented rates, according to The Women in The Workplace 2022 report by LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Company, who have released the research annually since 2015.

“We’re finally seeing the moment where women in leadership are voting with their feet,” said Alexis Krivkovich, a managing partner at McKinsey and cofounding report author.

In this “profound change,” women are indeed deciding to vote for the workplace they want with the most compelling power they will ever have: their presence, time and energy. Nothing short of this will shake up the workplace as we have known it. No matter the current representation, senior women are going beyond just getting access to upper levels and getting clearer on what they would like to experience and see happen there, and seeking that out. Could senior women’s participation from this place of self-empowerment catalyze greater change?

Women Aren’t Leaving, They’re Leaving For Better

“We are in the midst of a Great Breakup in corporate America. Women leaders are leaving their companies at the highest rate we’ve ever seen. They aren’t leaving the workforce entirely but are choosing to leave for companies with better career opportunities, flexibility, and a real commitment to DEI,” said Sheryl Sandberg, founder of Lean In, who leaned out of Facebook this past summer.

About 10.5% of female leaders (senior management and above) left their companies in 2021, compared to 9% of male leaders. On the average year, the spread is close with only a half-point gap.

Senior women leaders, after all the journey they have gained, aren’t walking out because they don’t think they have choices. They are walking about because they finally know they do – and they are taking their leadership assets with them in search of better opportunities. Having now recovered from pandemic job losses, women are more attuned to the relationship they want (and the ones will not tolerate) within the workplace. Women’s threshold to tolerate toxicity and inequity has been thinned, yet the broken rung is still there and the broken record of unequal outcomes plays wearingly on repeat. Women leaders are voting for the relationships they want to have with work.

Cultures That Work for Women’s Advancement

Women are as ambitious as men. Black women leaders (59%) and women of color (41%) are even more likely to want to be top executives (27%). But only 1 in 4 C-Suite leaders is a woman and only one in 20 is a woman of color. For every 100 men promoted from entry level to manager, just 87 women and 82 women of color are promoted.

And the signals that counter advancement come across in microaggressions or more overt dynamics: Female leaders are twice as likely as male counterparts to be mistaken for someone junior. 37% of women leaders said they’ve had a co-worker get credit for their idea, compared to 27% of men. Black female leaders are 1.5x more likely than women overall to have had their judgment or qualification questioned. Many women still feel undermined or passed over in the workplace.

Recognition for and Performance Consideration Of Essential Work 

While women are twice as likely to do be doing DEI-related and inclusion work that is helping with company performance, they are disproportionally carrying an increasingly ‘valued’ aspect of leadership that too often goes unrecognized and 40% say does not factor into the performance review. Meanwhile, women leaders are more burnt out (43%) than male counterparts (31%).

Flexible Work Cultures that Embody the Talk Around Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Women want a better work culture. Only 1 in 10 women wants to work on-site most of the time, and women will move for flexibility. It’s not surprising considering that 52% of senior female leaders do most of the family housework and childcare compared to 13% of senior male leaders. Women who work the way they want to feel far happier, feel they have more equal opportunity to advance and are less likely to leave their job. Remote work also provides a reprieve from office-based exclusion and as McKinsey points out, that is a fundamental issue for organizations to address: “Companies cannot rely on remote and hybrid work as a solution; they need to invest in creating a truly inclusive culture.”

Over the past two years, being in a culture committed to well-being and DEI has become more important to women, and they are 1.5 more likely to have left a job because they wanted a more inclusive culture.

Better And More Supportive Managers 

Having a supportive manager is a top three criteria for women when thinking of joining or staying with an organization. Only about half of women say their manager encourages respectful behavior on their team regularly. Less than half say their manager shows interest in their career and helps them manage their workload. Black women and Latinas are particularly less likely to feel their manager shows interest in their career, checks in on their well-being or promotes inclusion on the team. They also experience less psychological safety. Women with various intersectional identities see gaps between the lip service to inclusion and what is actually happening in their experience.

Towards A Work Paradigm That Works For Women?

Female directors are becoming more sensitive to the conditions that don’t work for them, and it matters for them and future generations. Women under 30 are highly ambitious to become senior leaders, but 2/3 would be more interested if they saw senior women with a covetable work-life balance, an increasingly important career requirement for younger people.

The press isn’t focused on how bad this attrition of women leaders is for women. It’s focused on how bad the attrition of women leaders is for organizations. McKinsey has previously found that executives teams in the top quartile of gender diversity have a 25% greater likelihood of outperformance (above average profitability) than those in the bottom. LeanIn.Org and McKinsey have several recommendations for organizations following this recent report.

Stepping back, we are interested in what happens when women leaders take stock of their own value. All along, women have been trying to pave the way for those behind them by fighting to have a seat at the table. But increasingly, women are realizing that modeling leadership is not only about the rooms you are able to walk into, but also the rooms you are willing to walk away from. Because we need to walk towards creating organizational missions and cultures where all women (and people) are welcome and supported to lead and live their lives.

That is the power of esteeming the self. How would that mindset shift, at a collective level, give rise to more change in our workplace?

By Aimee Hansen

/by

Kate Kenner Archibald: Chief Marketing Officer, Dash Hudson

,

Kate Kenner Archibald“The combination of expressing your needs and doing fewer things better is what I have learned in recent years,” says Kate Archibald, who shares on advancing in a workplace of women, creating a spherical life and managing up.

Growing as a Leader While Surrounded By Women

Having grown up in New York, Archibald idolized the big fashion house vibe. She was magnetized to how creativity and business merged together at Estée Lauder, where she spent 14 years specializing in luxury brands, including Tom Ford Beauty and Bobbi Brown, honing her career towards tech marketing. In November, she moved to Dash Hudson, an all-in-social entertainment insights marketing software platform that works across some of the most influential global brands including Apple, Amazon and Disney.

With three kids (currently, seven years, five years and ten months old) and a husband with a full-time job, maintaining her career through the family journey has been a choice she has committed to, partly because she derives great satisfaction from her work, and also because of the independence mindset she adopted early on.

“My father really impressed upon me the value of being independently successful as a woman and used to impress upon me that I could be a CEO,” she reflects, “He’s been a huge impact in my life, so being independent has always been important for me.”

At Estée Lauder, she was surrounded by a workforce of 85% women, so the vertical track to, and horizontal track across, leadership positions were well-accessible for women who wished to advance, and Archibald navigated across several cross-functional leadership positions.

“I was encouraged and enabled, and there were opportunities,” she says. “You still have to know that nobody is going to hold your hand, and you are the owner of your destiny. But it helps to be in a place where the growth mentality as a woman is appreciated.”

Now at Dash Hudson, Archibald enjoys the mix of professional and personal life supported by the tech-like atmosphere and culture while still leveraging the leadership experiences she gained through her tenure in beauty and luxury.

Creating a Spherical Life and Reserving Family Time

“I am very direct in terms of what we’re trying to accomplish and what we need to do to achieve our goals. I try to get to the root of the problem and reduce the back-and-forth,” Archibald says, accrediting her need for work-family balance for the acute focus. “I also enjoy creating an environment of collaboration by enabling people to see outside of their silos, and to understand how the piece they are contributing is interrelated and contributing to the other teams. I’m a huge proponent of creating a structured collaboration framework and connecting the dots.”

Archibald has recently been inspired by the novel approach her CEO takes to hiring and culture at Dash Hudson: “The mentality is people first. Let’s find the best, smartest, most amazing people and figure out where they can add the most value. The strength of the talent and the true belief that diversity makes us stronger creates an incredible culture. The level of support felt between peers and teams is a real shift for most people when they join the company. Especially in a hybrid environment.”

Within a mostly female environment for over a decade, Archibald has had the benefit of sharing lots of honest conversations with successful women. She has often sought insight on managing professional and family demands, even the basics of keeping a household running. A recommendation she received along the way was to think of your life as a circle or a pie graph that includes everything that is important to you:- family, work, health, friends, spirituality, etc.

“If one part of the pie gets more dominating than you want it to be, you have to consider how to make that part smaller so you can ‘right-size’ your family life or your spiritual life, for example,” she says. “That has really helped me to compartmentalize what I’m doing and how it impacts the other parts of my life.”

As a traditional Jewish family, Archibald and her family observe Shabbat every week, reserving Friday night and Saturday strictly for time with family. Honoring this has been fundamental in helping manage her time, and because that time is a weekly fixed date, it’s also helped her feel more peaceful during the week when she needs to work. Additionally, it ensures that she is aligned with her partner on their collective family goals.

“I think a lot of parents feel guilty if they don’t have dinner every night with their family,” she says. “But for me, every Friday is a guaranteed dinner together with all the family and Saturday is family, all day. No exceptions. It has given me a supportive structure in my life.”

In addition to being influenced by her father’s outlook on independence and her supportive husband, Archibald attests that her mother is the hardest working person she knows. While Archibald went off to first grade, her mother went back to school and obtained her PhD in Neuropsychology. Inspired by her, Archibald wishes to model to her daughter and two sons that a woman can have a career and still be present for her family.

Managing Up and Knowing Your Own Expectations

As she’s grown more senior in her career, Archibald has found herself getting better at reinforcing her own brand of executive presence and managing up: “The transition over your career is toward managing up, and ensuring that you get what you need. I learned this the hard way when faced with health challenges, when I was doing too much and not telling people what I needed. I really have come to see the importance of don’t take on too much and do fewer things better, both of which I pass on to women just starting their career.”

When it comes to mentoring, she also tells everyone, but especially mothers with young children, that if you’re not happy at home, you’re not going to be happy at work.

“If your work is really impacting your home life, take that step back to figure out what and how you can fix it. Push for flexibility, which is becoming more common, or figure out what the issue is,” she says, “But if you’re not satisfied with how much time you have with your family, you’re never going to be happy at work, no matter how much money you’re making.”

Archibald advises women to go back to the sphere and consider the balance across areas and really understand “what does good look like, for you?” which is different for everyone. She says, you have to be able to manage life in a way that works for your expectations for your family and work life ― and honestly, check if your employer is willing to support that for and with you.

Changing Jobs Amidst a Remote Workplace

Having joined Dash Hudson well into the pandemic, and in the middle of her crossover maternity leave, Archibald has yet to meet her new colleagues in person. But in this exceptional context of our times, she has hugely valued a strong and communicative organizational culture, which has supported her onboarding and becoming part of the team.

Together, her family loves skiing in the winter and swimming in the summer in the Hudson Valley, where she loves being outdoors and active in nature. She has a real passion for ice cream and swears her ice cream place in Tivoli, New York is verifiably (just check Food & Wine Magazine) the best in the world.

By Aimee Hansen

/by

OP-ed: Menopause at Work – A Call To Action

, ,

A senior HR official at a Fortune 500 company recently told me that women at her company routinely refuse to accept recognition awards for their years of service. Why? Because they don’t want people to know their age. Had that ever happened with a man, I asked? Never, she replied.

menopause at workOur society does not value age and aging, particularly in women. For women in the workplace and in other leadership positions, this double whammy of sexism and ageism is pernicious. As a result, many of us take steps to avoid drawing attention to our age. So when it comes to menopause, a unique marker of aging for women, it’s complicated. Even my most confident and successful friends and contemporaries become uncomfortable when talking about menopause. The stigma is real. We endure the stereotypes of angry women fanning themselves through hot flashes, while the silver fox goes happily about his business.

I am passionate about menopause because I believe that we are doing women and the people important to them a disservice by not talking more openly about the effects that menopause can have on some women, particularly at work. Many of us are in our prime professionally during these years, with senior positions of responsibility and management. It goes without saying (or it should) that having more women in C-suite positions is a good thing. Among other things, companies with greater C-suite diversity are shown to be more profitable, and more socially responsible.

The status quo of ignoring menopause is not ok. Menopause has a real effect on many women at work, as shown in this recent study, from Standard Chartered Bank and the Financial Services Skills commission in the UK. It delves into the effect that menopause is having on the financial services sector. A key finding centers around loss of talent due to menopausal symptoms – the study found that a quarter of employees experiencing menopausal symptoms said that they were more likely to leave the workforce early because of their experience. And the very real stigma around menopause means that only 22% are comfortable talking about it.

So what is menopause? The average age for menopause in the US is 51, and experienced by every cisgender woman (and some non-binary and transgender people.) Menopause marks the day when you have not had a period for 12 months. The time leading up to menopause is perimenopause, which generally begins in the mid 40s and lasts on average seven years. Perimenopause is caused by fluctuations in hormones, and this is when menopausal symptoms may start. During this time, periods may be uneven, heavier than normal, or irregular. You may have hot flashes, night sweats, brain fog, difficulty concentrating, heightened anxiety, reduced libido, weight gain (especially around the waist), heart palpitations, vaginal dryness, sleeping issues, or stiff and aching joints. In fact, there are 34 widely reported symptoms of menopause. 80% of women experience the most common symptoms, hot flashes and night sweats. For 15% of women, they are severe. For women who enter menopause surgically, perhaps due to a hysterectomy or cancer treatment, symptoms are often worse. The symptom that women find the most bothersome? Difficulty sleeping. Not surprising, as lack of sleep affects all other aspects of life. These menopausal symptoms don’t stop when your periods end; they often last for several years after you are officially in menopause, though they typically taper off. Once you have hit one year with no periods –a moment that can only be marked retroactively– you are post-menopausal. You will remain in this state the rest of your life.

Many women are familiar with the more common perimenopausal symptoms, but most don’t realize that their heightened anxiety, heart palpitations, sudden waking up in the middle of the night, lack of confidence, or difficulty remembering words might all be related to the fluctuating hormones of menopause. We tend to think of menopause as a gynecological issue, but it is so much more than that. It affects every organ in our body, and none more so than the brain. In fact, anti-depressants are often misprescribed during perimenopause: one study suggests that more than 60% of women have been inappropriately given antidepressants for low mood associated with menopause (and they won’t work if the cause is fluctuating hormones). It’s also important to note that menopause comes with many positives: no more periods! No more worrying about getting accidentally pregnant!

So what can we do to destigmatize menopause? Here are a few suggestions for actions to take, both personally and in your workplace.

  • Get Educated. Understanding what happens during the (potentially very long!) perimenopausal period can shed some light on what can feel like uncontrollable, out-of-nowhere struggles, like those sudden middle of the night wakings or lack of confidence. It’s often difficult to untangle perimenopausal symptoms from the normal stresses of life (particularly these days). But understanding what happens during menopause, knowing that it is transitory and that you have agency, is important. A good, fact based, very readable book on the subject is Dr. Jen Gunter’s ‘The Menopause Manifesto’. A new non-profit, letstalkmenopause.org, has some great resources, and balance-menopause.com, developed by the UK’s leading menopause physician, has a lot of fact based information (and a great app, too).
  • If you are suffering, seek help. Menopause is a natural transition, but that doesn’t mean it’s ok to suffer. You have options for treatment. Your OB-GYN should be your first call, but don’t be discouraged if they aren’t as helpful as you hoped: there is, sadly, a huge gap in care for menopausal women. Shockingly, just 20% of OB-GYN residency programs provide any kind of menopause training. The North American Menopause Society (NAMS) has a list of certified menopause practioners. There are also new services specifically focused on menopausal women; Gennev, Elektra Health and Alloy, for example.
  • Talk to your HR department. The more that this issue is raised, the better. Ask what benefits your company has for menopausal women. Have your women’s group do an information session. Give a training on menopause for managers. Asking for information and resources will bring the issue to the fore. The more menopause is raised, the more your company will start to recognize it as a life event that should be supported just as fertility and pregnancy are, and treated with as much sensitivity as mental health.
  • Talk to your colleagues, friends and family. Be part of breaking the stigma. While you may be uncomfortable talking about menopause at work, sharing your experience with trusted colleagues educates, empowers, and normalizes. And if you aren’t comfortable talking about it at work, talk to your friends! It’s helpful to understand what other women are going through, and to share your experiences. Don’t forgot your partners and family too: it’s important they understand what you are going through. There are also some great online communities: the apps Peanut and Perry have good menopause support groups.

Menopause is a natural, essential stage of life. It can also add to what’s already a stressful time – kids, parents, work, COVID. But by empowering ourselves and our communities with knowledge, support, and the right medical help, we can march into the next half of life with joy, strength and power.

About the writer:

Kate Brashares (she/her) is the co-Founder and CEO of a new startup, Hello Maisy, focused on developing clinically proven, effective products and services that are being designed to support women through all life stages, with an initial focus on perimenopause, menopause and healthy aging. She is passionate about building and growing organizations that drive societal change and improve health outcomes. Previously Kate was the Executive Director of Edible Schoolyard NYC, and has also worked in brand marketing and finance. Kate has a B.A from Cambridge University and an M.B.A. from Columbia University.

Help us find out more! We are conducting a survey to find out more about women’s experience with menopause. Please fill in the anonymous survey here.

/by