Is Being Assertive Too ‘Male’ for Women?

Do you think that running seminars in assertiveness is selling women short?

As a specialist in women’s development and someone who runs courses for women, and coaches women regularly, I obviously read a lot on my subject and try to keep myself as up to date with the research as much as I can.

I read something recently which pulled me up short and caused to take a serious look at what I do professionally. I’m quoting out of context but it’s the essence which is important. I was reading some research by a serious academic writing about communication styles and she said, in effect, that teaching women to be more assertive could be seen as teaching them to be more like men. And if you’ve read much of my work you’ll know this is emphatically what I don’t want to do, yet I do help women behave more assertively. Crikey!

So am I being hoist by my own petard here? It has caused me to seriously reflect on what I am actually doing when I work with women to feel more in control and to behave more assertively. Am I teaching them to behave like men or am I helping to increase their confidence in handling potentially difficult or fraught situations, and in dealing with men in the workplace?

A Short History of Assertiveness

I think it might help to define terms at this point.

Obviously assertive behaviour has been around since the year dot. In recent history the Civil Rights movement in the US in the 50s adopted many assertive principles when they respectfully and peacefully challenged the discrimination laws in the southern states.

The actual term assertiveness was probably coined somewhere around the nineteen sixties when psychologists began to study human behaviour in the same way that anthropologists had always studied animal behaviour. Books like ‘I’m OK, You’re OK’ were very popular, and different communication styles were looked at. This being the 60s I would agree the concept was very male centric as there was no serious challenge then to the notion that being male was the norm.

In the 70s the women’s movement took up the notion of assertiveness and used it as a means of growing in confidence to possibly play men at their own game. Movements like ‘Reclaim the Night’ sprung up when women were ‘taught’ to walk tall, not look like victims and have assertive body language. Late night walks were organised with the aim of dispelling victim fear among women.  I have no problems with being identified with that.

It’s in the 80s that I think it all went wrong. The eighties were generally a time of me me, greed is good etc and predictably courses in assertiveness followed the fashion. I had my first encounter with assertiveness training then, a full week’s residential course and I remember thinking, “well, if this is assertiveness, you can stuff it”.

It was awful, very much a case of  ‘I’ll win and you’ll lose.’  Is this a male way of thinking? The course leader was male, most of the writing was by guys, and most of the participants on my course were male. Research shows that when men talk amongst themselves it tends towards competitiveness. This way of looking at assertiveness was all about winning, competing. Much of what we had learned about good communication was also appropriated by sales trainers and used to establish a false rapport to sell more. I saw it more as a manipulative technique rather than a useful tool. Assertiveness got bad name during the eighties.

The next time I seriously began to think about the concept of assertiveness was a few years later when working with women in abusive situations. The issue boiled down to one of self respect: the personal issue, I mean. Obviously there is a whole raft of material and theories on why men abuse women which has little to do with women respecting themselves. I’m talking about the link between self respect and choice of partner here. These women had very little self esteem. Helping them to be more assertive in their daily lives increased their self esteem, their confidence, and consequently their ability to deal with the situations they were in. We did not work with them to behave like men.

Some years ago, shortly after setting up my own  business, I was asked at short notice if I could take over an assertiveness course within an organisation as the previous person had left suddenly. I agreed but was shocked by the course details presented to me. The previous tutor had been male, had actually been a car salesman in a previous life (nothing wrong with that, just filling in the background) and his course was firmly rooted in the 80s, you won or lost, according to how you played the game. Needless to say I designed my own programme, which incidentally was well received by both men and women.

Definition of Assertiveness

I think assertiveness is about respecting yourself, valuing what you bring to the table, and having the confidence to speak up. It’s not about being aggressive, or staying quiet and being passive or any combinations thereof. Essentially it is  about extending that level of respect to others. You have the right to say what you feel and believe honestly, and others have that that right too.

So on reflection, no, I don’t think what I do is about teaching women how to be like men. I think it’s about self respect, self esteem, and confidence and valuing self and others. And that doesn’t belong to any one gender, surely?

The Empathy Quiz

There was a really thought provoking article in the UK newspaper The Observer recently on the topic of Empathy. I have written before about empathy but the premise of this article was that lack of empathy has a link with evil, or perhaps could be an alternative, more accurate definition for evil.

The article was written by Simon Baron-Cohen, professor of Developmental Psychopathology at the University of Cambridge and Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge. He is Director of the Autism Research Centre in Cambridge. With those credentials, as you might expect, it’s well worth a read. (There is a link to the article at the end of this post).

The article was accompanied by a quiz to check out your empathy levels, which is 40 questions long. I have picked just ten of those questions below, which if you answer “strongly agree” suggests a high level of empathy, (you can take the full quiz on The Observer site)

• I can easily tell if someone wants to enter a conversation
• I am quick to spot if someone in a group is feeling awkward and uncomfortable
• I find it easy to put myself in someone else’s shoes
• I don’t tend to find to find social situations confusing
• I can tune into how someone else feels rapidly and intuitively
• I can usually appreciate the other person’s viewpoint, even if I don’t agree with it
• I can tell if someone is masking their true emotion
• I can sense if I am intruding, even if the other person doesn’t tell me
• I really enjoy caring for other people
• I can pick up quickly if someone says one thing but means another

Before writing this post I had a brief email exchange with Dr Baron-Cohen re my own bias that sometimes women’s empathy does not serve them well in senior positions, and is not valued. He replied that he agreed and referred me to his book on that topic, The Essential Difference (Amazon link), published in 2004. I’m not sure how that one passed me by but I’m about to read it. Look out for a review soon!

Meanwhile, what do you think? Are high levels of empathy incompatible with very senior management posts? What about senior politicians?  Let me know your thoughts!

The Observer article is here.
Photo by Mrinkk

What’s in a Cover?

My friend, novelist Morag Joss put an interesting post on her site recently about how her publisher had chosen two different covers and titles for her latest book  to appeal to two different markets – the U.S. and U.K. The covers are radically different  but the content is the same. One assumes that the publishers know their stuff but it is intriguing. The book for UK publication is called ‘Across the Bridge‘ and the US version ‘Among The Missing’.

First Impressions

One of these covers will probably attract you more than the other; you will be more likely to pick up one if browsing in a bookshop.

Whether we like it or not people judge a book by its cover. Every time you step into public view you are projecting an image. You may not like that idea and resolutely resist the idea that appearance matters and that will be the image you are projecting! It’s like your shadow, you can’t get rid of it, it’s always there. But you can choose, to a degree, what image you project.

So it is worth taking a few moments to consider if the ‘cover’ you are projecting to the world is the one you want out there. Is your ‘cover’ the best one for your target audience? When you first appear at an event or meeting, people look at you and make a judgement. It may be a positive assessment or it may not. If positive, you start with an advantage. If negative the reverse is true. You are on the back foot from the start and will have to work harder.

Which Cover?

Back to those covers. Here is the US version opposite. What do you think? Do you prefer the U.S version or the first? I’d love to know. If you are a US reader has the publisher shown the right cover to sell it to you, and likewise for the UK? Do tell!

And while we’re on the subject, what do you think of the cover of my book? You can be totally honest as hard copies are selling out and a new run will be coming soon. But there are still ‘first edition’ copies available!

Scourer or Soft Flannel?

Do you find you often turn to the same trusted advisers for advice? Have you ever thought about trying someone else?

I was engaging in one of my favourite activities the other day – lazing in a hot scented bath listening to the radio. I reached behind me to grab for what I expected to be a soft soapy flannel and, before I realised that it wasn’t, started rubbing it across my skin.

Well, that was a bit of a shock! Not the nice smooth strokes I had been expecting but a rude awakening! Somehow I’d got hold of the bath scourer and not my luxurious flannel.

Scourer Advice or Soft Flannel?

I wouldn’t recommend a bath scourer for a luxury time, although it did ‘refresh’ me and bring a new perspective to my bath time! The surprise attack of the bath scourer certainly interrupted my quiet reveries and woke me up. Which set me thinking, who are the soft flannels in your life? Have you got friends you regularly ask for advice because you know you will get a nice soft positive stroke? You know they will be supportive and could probably predict with 99% accuracy what they might say to you. There is nothing wrong with that, we all need it from time to time and supportive friends are worth their weight in gold..

But sometimes, a soft positive stroke is not what is required. Sometimes we may need the shock of the bath scourer to shake our complacency, to wake us up and make us think again.

So, if you wanted a really honest opinion from someone, no holds barred, who would you ask? Would you ask them? Who are your bath scourers? And do you use them enough…?

Women Lack Confidence…?

If I am forced to sum up what I do in three words I will say ‘boost women’s confidence‘.

I actually do a myriad of things, from courses, coaching, seminars, and writing but the leitmotif of all my work is giving women the confidence to fulfil their potential. To be all that they can be, whether that is about career progression or giving it all up and growing vegetables!

I was really interested therefore, to read of a survey undertaken by the Institute of Leadership and Management, Ambition & Gender. They spoke to 3,000 managers to find out what drives career ambition and to explore the barriers preventing women’s progression into senior management and leadership positions.

Confidence

Among their findings was the fact that women are less confident of their abilities than men. Over half of the women admitted to feelings of self doubt compared with 31% of men.

I don’t know why this might be but suspect a lot of it is to do with our attitudes to getting more women into senior positions. The tendency is to ‘fix’ women to behave more like men and not value as highly that which women bring to the workplace. In coaching,  I often find women berating themselves for not being more ambitious or ruthless, yet closer questioning reveals it’s much more about the compromises required to get there, rather than ability to do the job. As Penny de Valk, ILM’s chief executive says, the research highlights some of the complex dynamics of what is, in many cases, still a male-centric work culture.

Coaching Promotes Women’s Confidence

Penny went on to say that it is crucial that employers who are serious about gender diversity take steps to find ways to nuture women’s ambitions.

“This means developing transparent talent management systems and introducing leadership career models and development approaches that flex to meet individuals’ differing needs. Coaching and mentoring, in particular, have an invaluable role to play. We know that gender diversity drives organisations’ financial performance. Business leaders should need no encouragement to ensure their most talented employees move into leadership roles, regardless of their gender”

I have a whole series of career tips for women but perhaps my best single tip is to remember that the internal messages we give ourselves are hugely powerful. They can boost or diminish our confidence. If you are carrying round in your head some negative internal spam, identify them, then neutralise them, then replace them with something  positive and inspiring!

And if you’d like to find out more about working with me, please do contact me for an informal discussion.

How to Get More Women on Board

Last week the UK government launched an initiative to get more women on the boards of the top FTSE companies. The proportion of women on FTSE 100 boards has plateaued at 12.5%, having increased little over the past three years, according to Cranfield University School of Management. In the FTSE 250, the proportion is just 7.8 per cent and more than half of companies have no women directors.

Other countries don’t have this problem. Norway introduced quotas which have been met; they now have 40% women on boards. I have family in Norway and attitudes there towards gender equality have long been different. When my sister in law and I had children in the 80s the attitudes and provision of childcare in our respective countries were absolutely poles apart! Even back then her husband could take time off as paternity leave. My partner discovered, almost by accident, that there was a discretionary 5 days leave for new fathers, which he promptly asked for. He was told he was the only teacher to have ever asked for it and ribbed mercilessly by his sports teaching colleagues.

It’s Not a Woman’s Issue

There are lots of good reasons why companies should have women in very senior positions (apart from the fact that it’s just plain right!). Companies who invest in women’s development find it reaps rewards across the board (no pun intended). But not just one token woman; the real changes begin when there are three or more at board level.

It’s a Man’s World

The world of work, particularly in traditional fields like law, finance, and local government, were set up and designed in a time when women didn’t work in these industries (women have always worked!) other than in support roles. Some business practices /models need challenging to enable women to fully participate. We all take it for granted that that’s how business works, and so we try to help women fit into this model…

I believe that leads to a dissonance, a misfit for most women that often accounts for why women dip out before they reach the top (along with all the other factors mitigating against women). We need to change the model so it works for all the workforce, not just half of it. So many discriminatory practices are so embedded in working culture that many of us don’t even notice them half the time; from how jobs are advertised, language used, how recruitment and interviews work (quite adversarial) to how women are treated in organisations.

Women’s Groups Don’t Work

I have come to believe that in house all women groups probably don’t help, at least in respect of those which exist to try and change the culture to one more gender balanced. I think they work well for women in other arenas but actually, if you want to change attitudes in the workplace, everyone has to sign up to it. Women’s groups run the risk of saying to men, “this is an issue for women, this is our problem”. Which allows it to become ghettoised. In fact, it is everyone’s problem and everyone in a company needs to understand and address it.

So Why Do I Run Women’s Courses?

It’s a good question and one I have answered more fully in a previous post. Men and women are different and currently the issues for women in the world of work are very different than those of men. The overall aim of my courses is to raise women’s aspirations and give them the confidence to challenge the status quo, to push themselves. I don’t bar men from these sessions but I have written and designed them with women in mind. Generally the issues are not pertinent or relevant for men. Men and women respond differently to personal development type seminars and generally speaking women are more comfortable exploring these issues with other women.

The call for gender equality is not about pretending we are all the same. It is about celebrating that difference and not allowing one to dominate. It is valuing the different qualities which women bring to the workplace as well as those of men.

I interviewed Avivah Wittenberg-Cox a while ago. She has written two great books on gender equality ‘Why Women mean Business‘ and ‘How Women mean Business‘. One thing she said resonated very strongly with me:

“If women in your organisation are still in grey and black suits the gender issue is still very live!”

Women are not men, and should not have to behave like men to get rewarded in the world of work. Society needs both men and women in the top echelons, middle echelons, and across all sectors of society. Bring on the women!

if you’d like to find out more about my course for women on the way up, please click this link.