Today I started my noon hour with unconscious hopes of getting all the answers. I was attending a "Lunch and Learn" session entitled Why Women Leaders Quit. My first reaction was: Do we really need a seminar to figure this out? Besides, I'm not really interested in hearing about the why. Believe me, I get the why. What I need to learn about is the how.
How to stay the course. How not to compromise the important things. How to passionately invest yourself while not becoming completely depleted in the meantime.
I wonder if men in leadership ask themselves the same questions. I somehow imagine that their questions would be different from mine but perhaps not. I don't really know.
I would be lying if I said I didn't think fairly regularly about quitting my job. But I've come to realize that I don't think that this would solve my problems. Many of the problems and tensions I face in my role are not unique to the organization I work with. And they are not unique to me either. Sure, the challenges that women in leadership face are coloured by the expectations that others, including men, have of us. But for me, like so many other women, the edges of my palette bleed to greyblack with the near impossible expectations that I place on myself to excel at it all: to be an strong and authentic leader and an attentive and engaged mother and wife and an ever-available listening ear and supportive friend and a contributing community member and and and...
I smiled to myself in the line at the Safeway, where I stopped on my way home this afternoon, as I tried in vain to balance my armload of milk cartons and eggs cartons while digging for a notepad to take down the contact info of the client I had on the cellphone.
I know I am not alone. It was good to hear this today. I guess I'll figure out the how some other day.
Nice article. You should submit it to today's parent. I'm not quite sure I follow your use of the term 'leader' though. By women leaders quitting, do you mean in the workplace? Ie: anyone who is working in a position of authority? Or do you mean leaders like the head of a committee, the vp of accounts etc...
ReplyDeleteI've been watching madmen, cause dawn got into it, and we watched about two episodes a night since October. We are all caught up now, and there is some good writing in that show following women in leadership... U should check it out... I got caught with a "OF MICE AND MEN" attack on this show... Someone I know and trusted told me it was a comedy so i watched the first episode... It took a lot of convincing to give it a second chance...
Jmk
I was thinking particularly of leadership in the context of the workplace, thinking about how women in leadership/management positions at work negotiate all the various complexities and demands in their lives.
ReplyDeleteWe've also been watching Madmen, but we're not caught up yet. I'm of mixed minds about it - I love the window into the 60's but could do without some of the melodrama. I keep watching it though...