Unleashing Potential: Helping each other Inspire Inclusion

I have thought a lot about the words "Inspire Inclusion" and how we can all do more to inspire others to meet their goals…? The IWD2024 website (What does it mean to truly inspire inclusion? ( internationalwomensday.com ) ) details what this theme means and two sentences struck a chord.

·??????? the importance of diversity and empowerment in all aspects of society.

·??????? promotion of diversity in leadership and decision-making positions.?

The definition of ‘inspiring’ is helping someone, often through sharing stories and experiences, to feel strongly interested or enthusiastic about a topic or situation. “Inspiring” with “decision making” are the two things that jumped out at me the most from reading about this theme. Just this week my son has been discussing his “options” for subjects to be studied for final years. A hot topic amongst the children was “choice”. Some of the children have been given only one option with the school deciding for them, whilst others have three choices.? This created a huge sense of injustice in the friend group. When decisions are made for you even as a child it can create a strong sense of exclusion, lack of empowerment and overall, a feeling of being helpless.

When I reflect on the overall position of women in the world today it’s true that unfortunately many decisions that affect women directly are still made by non-representative groups. I am fortunate in the UK to live in a much more balanced society where legislation supports the importance of diversity and empowerment. However, even here there are many aspects of society that still harbour bias whether these be conscious or unconscious. Our roles as leaders and advocates for change is to ensure these facts do not go unnoticed and to call them out, especially with unconscious bias which when left unchecked can trigger that sense of exclusion that accompanies the sense of injustice in not feeling empowered.

Two of the most frequent topics I see that exist that limit women in achieving their full potential (and by the way that doesn’t mean becoming the next CEO, running major organisations, or being an Entrepreneur, for me achieving full potential means the ability to choose your own life goals and live to achieve them) are “Limiting Beliefs” and “I have no time”.?When I speak to people about their dreams, goals and ambitions these are frequently the two things I hear.

Limiting belief is a state of mind or belief about yourself that restricts you in some way, negative thoughts that hold us back from achieving our goals or living our full potential. Some examples of limiting beliefs are I’m too old, I am too young to do something or I’m not good enough or smart enough to succeed. Limiting beliefs are caused by several factors but they all stem from the same place: your brain’s desire to protect you from pain in the future. Often in society these pains are triggered as a child, even from things at the time we didn’t consider “limiting”, ?perhaps we were unable to play football for our schools team as we were the wrong gender, felt uneasy picking subjects where the majority of the students were boys, or in my case unable to be an "Alter boy" at our local church. Perhaps we only only experienced men in positions of power such as Head Teachers, Doctors, Pilots, Lawyers. These sorts of situations, years later, can result in limiting beliefs that affect our bias to ourselves and those around us.

Many people may not know but I was a teenage mother, having my daughter when I was just 17, we both became a social statistic.

For a while after becoming a teenage mother I made choices I aligned with what I thought were socially acceptable, for example joining Teacher Training after my degree because the “hours” worked better, not sharing with colleagues I was a mother of a 4 year old so as not to be “judged”. Reflecting on this years later I can see at that time I had limiting beliefs that were causing decisions not necessarily in line with my ambitions. With the support of my friends and family I worked through this and used the stereotyping as fuel to drive my goals. The first part of recognising a limited belief is holding you back or influencing your decision-making, is to identify this could be the issue. Friends, confidents and coaches are key to this! We cannot allow limiting beliefs to affect our ability to choose, or the ability of others to choose or us. Why shouldn’t we take our seats at the decision-making tables in whatever path life takes us!

The second factor I see in women reaching their goals relates to the perception of “available time”. Whether we like it or not, women still bear the brunt of family chores… Whilst improvements have undoubtably been made to balance the load statistics show that almost half of working-age women in the UK do 45 hours of unpaid care a week, while 25% of men provide 17 hours. Additionally, with aging populations, families can often find themselves supporting both their children and elderly parents (known as sandwich care). There are 1.25 million sandwich caregivers in the UK, of which 68% are women. Is it any wonder that at a time when appointments are being made to key decision-making positions women step back. Now of course if a woman (or man) choose to step back this should also be supported and not impact their future return. It’s about ensuring we support the choice and create environments where families can balance these needs across all the pulls of on their time.

We can also help each other by being respectful of people’s time, and sharing ideas to help us cope with the demands we have. Time is the only true unit of measure, it’s the only thing we can’t buy more of even if we are Elon Musk! Yet it perhaps the commodity I see us be the most wasteful with. Whether it be doom scrolling (ok, yes, I love a good reel!), attending meetings which are unproductive, doing work that doesn’t drive real value, or picking up tasks others should do. Two years ago I identified the need to get some help with my fitness, (a battle I still live daily!). The biggest thing I learnt in the journey to get fitter and healthier was time management. Something I thought I was pretty good at! erm…nope! One thing that will always stick with me is 15 mins is 1% of your day. Surely, we can all find 1% of our day to focus on our goals! Imagine where you will be in a year if you do that every day!

Whilst having more women at the table does not solve every problem, it is also true that women make up more than half the population, and they should be equally represented. Representation is the core basis of democracy.?It improves decision making, the UN have found that women’s involvement impacts decision-making in a positive way - with examples including better childcare in Norway and more drinking water projects in India are both linked to higher levels of female representation. In the workplace its driving diversity, inclusion and belonging helps ensure a fairer and better place to work for everyone. In 2020, McKinsey & Company's "Diversity Wins" report found that companies in the top quartile for ethnic and cultural diversity on executive teams were 36% more likely to have above-average profitability than companies in the bottom quartile. Similarly, companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 25% more likely to have above-average profitability than companies in the bottom quartile. Guess what, ensuring everyone’s needs are considered in decision making leads to improved outcomes for everyone!

So, in summary, whilst much has been achieved to ensure parity and inclusion, much more can be done. By calling out the social factors that might be affecting how we operate, by addressing workplace practices that could affect a woman’s ability to choose to take a seat in leadership positions and by working together to tackle the situations we face every day we can keep moving forward.

International Women's Day 2024 is a chance to celebrate the achievements and struggles of women, and to take action for a more equal and inclusive future. Join the global movement and make your voice heard!