Oversharing might be exactly what we need to get more women to the top of the corporate world
A colleague recently told me about some great feedback she got from a friend. She had been relating a complicated story about one of her teenagers and suddenly thought she was oversharing. After all, her friend also had a full life of work and family—so why burden her with the minutiae??
?“Sorry to go into so much detail,” she texted.
“The details make me feel more normal,” her friend immediately texted back.?
When I’ve thought about solving the simultaneous equation of work and family in the past, I’ve always focused on the beginning. Building a career, considering when to have a family, thinking about leave and the return to work. Similarly, a lot of the conversations that we have about work and parenting (on LinkedIn and elsewhere) are about parental leave after having a baby: Making it available, normalizing it, making sure both parents are able to take it. And all of that matters. A lot.
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But the reality is this: Parenting is a long journey. The middle years may not require the same physical exertions that newborns and toddlers demand, but they are often much more emotionally and psychologically complex. Both my 16-year-old and 12-year-old rely on me to talk to them nightly about their homework, their friend drama, their challenges on and off the proverbial soccer field. Which is why last week, as I was boarding a flight to kick off my East Coast book tour, I found myself feeling strangely nervous about leaving them—something I’ve done countless times as a normal part of my job since becoming a parent.??
I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was different. But why? My kids are more independent than ever before. My career is at an exciting juncture. It wasn’t until my colleague shared her story that I realized there is another dimension to professional networking and support that we all need to develop if we want women to stay the course professionally and make it to the top.?
So let’s talk about all of it—especially the details—because we need to normalize asking for support from our companies and colleagues at all stages of the journey—not just at the beginning.
Board Member/Former CFO of Smartsheet & Treasurer of eBay/PayPal
1 年Your kids are so grown up! Great advice
VP of Marketing @ Trustwell | ??? Host of Food Tech Talk: Supply Chain Insights From Farm to Fork | Strategic Marketing Leader | Branding Expert | Growth-Focused Executive
1 年Such a great point. I thought as a young working mother - that would be the “hardest part”. Yet, I feel like my older kids (same ages as yours) need me more and more. Our roles continue to grow and evolve. And - I’m still just as exhausted ??.
Sustainability & ESG | Carbon Markets | Sustainable Finance | Sales | Corporate Strategy | All about those Net Zero Pathways
1 年Great post Jenna, couldn’t agree more!
Partner at Paralign Capital Partners
1 年While I agree with this Jenna Fisher, the most senior leaders in an org must consistently and continually model this. “Your old road is rapidly agin' Please get out of the new one If you can't lend your hand For the times they are a-changin” As example, right as covid began I shared in a global townhall for my own business unit about what my family had been dealing with and issues I’d seen in our global teams families (kids in a car crash, addictions, illnesses/cancer, hard stuff) just to have a ceo-direct report obliterate me in private for it afterwards. Even having the first slide show the telephone number for our employee support group was met with skepticism by execs far away in their closed_door offices…
Non-Profit Leader, Entrepreneur, Healthcare Executive and Dot Connector
1 年So true Jenna Fisher. I recently shared with a colleague about losing my husband to cancer. She then shared she'd lost her partner to a long and grueling neurodegenerative disease ... but didn't feel comfortable opening up until then. Brené Brown is onto something!