Plugging back the Power - How 40+ Women are a Force to be Listened To in Leading Change
By Bernard Chanliau, Wednesday 17 March, 2010
article by Lorna McDowell, Managing Director, Xenergie
As I trawled the aisles of my local Lidl store the other day, I noticed a number of males conducting the weekly family shopping, including a good friend of mine who has recently become the main carer of the children in his family, whilst his wife has reclaimed her legal career in order to support the household. For twelve years his wife cared at home for their disabled daughter, whilst he commuted to work in the city. The recession brought changes and now they've swapped roles. I notice this swapping of roles has become quite prevalent in the recession and as people navigate their forties and look for more meaning and fulfilment in between their family obligations. It probably saves marriages too. The women I've studied, often having left good careers to take rear children, found themselves in the archetypical mother's "career back seat" doing the "unspoken work" of family management. Back seat by common assumption and slip of the tongue, however front seat in terms of ingenuity and resourcefulness, leading and managing the day to day stresses of family human relations.
Many women, keen to have another source of stimulation and worth apart from being a full-time parent, start home-based businesses that go on to flourish, developing concrete entrepreneurial skills and lessons in efficiency and solving problems. These businesses begin by overcoming the first obstacle - how can I find the time to run a business AND take care of the children? Not afraid to fail, they find the answers by trial and error. Others take the opportunity of the "career break" to reflect on themselves and train in new skills, usually at their own expense, learning what it means to invest in oneself and caring enough to find even small ways to reap a return on the investment.
All in all, it's anything but a "break", more of a life renegotiation or "re-turn". As the children rise up the school ladder, the home-based parent often has a growing urge to explore their worth and potential again, after a number of years of feeling devalued and chained to family routines. Dreams of what could be or could have been are often abound.
Husbands, meanwhile having been stuck in the same career since leaving college, are by comparison tired, complacent and sticking their heads down a black hole of mid-life crisis. Recently, many have become an unfortunate statistic in recessionary redundancies, particularly if they are not shaping up to the "emotionally intelligent" leadership competencies now expected of senior managers. However, if they learn from the women who took the career back seat, this is a time of opportunity for reinvention for both the male and female to swap roles and learn from each other.
What of the rising motivation in "re-turning women"? I argue that it is possibly one of the greatest resources for driving us out of recession and into growth and yet the most wasted and least recognised. Re-turning women are not only in their prime and have a renewed determination, they have wisdom. They have honed a set of golden leadership competencies from being seasoned in life's lessons:
- Identifying, leading and driving change
- running a complex communications centre
- thinking laterally and solving problems with limited resources,
- teaching and mentoring others
- getting things done and working to unrelenting deadlines
- staying calm and focused in tough conditions
- releasing pride and ego to find the courage to start again, embracing the vulnerability of possibility even if it means failing
Mindful, emotionally intelligent execution at its best. To look for the leaders of change, look to the women. They see it coming before anyone. Ask any man who has been told by his wife the marriage is over. How can we reap the value of this natural untapped resource?
Research suggests that the more senior a female manager becomes, the more likely she is to think that there are barriers, such as the organizational structuring of career paths and promotions and male values dominating workplace cultures, that prevent women's progression. Real or imagined, these perceived barriers are a major obstacle to getting re-turning women back into the workplace in senior positions.
What can be done?
Firstly, companies must examine their own unconscious bias way beyond logging statistics. It goes much deeper. Secondly, these savvy women must step up ownership of their value and accountability to themselves and others of how this value contributes to the world. It's time to surface and examine the unconscious assumptions, habits communications networks and comfort zones about women, leadership and working roles and to name and value the importance of some of the competencies that they bring as being hardcore necessity for surviving these turbulent times.
Many companies provide coaching to their female managers - I argue that it's not just the female managers that need it, it's the male managers too who need help with reflecting on their unconscious assumptions and indeed, that perhaps it's time they took a back seat and an opportunity to learn from other life experiences. "Re-turning women", who are ready to go back to work, should be offered a coach and mentor appropriate to their skill set and motivations. One size does not fit all and most Government back to work schemes sorely miss the point. This in itself is a study.
How many companies, for example, stay in touch with women who leave their companies for a significant time period (beyond maternity leave) to bring up their families? How many have offered them a programme which might help prepare them to return? Instead of dismissing these women in favour of "young-blood" with whom you may have to reinvent the wheel, think again about the wisdom of the re-turning forty year old as your company transitions culturally to a wise new socially-driven world. What can your company do differently?
