Women in the Workplace - what do we want vs what we are told we should want?

Recently McKinsey released the 10th anniversary edition of its US-based Women in the Workplace report.? This is important research as it gives us a perspective of gender “progress” over the past decade.

Or does it?

We discussed the report, and women in the workplace more broadly, in our monthly Workplace Revolution Global Community discussion this morning.

What immediately emerged was a series of questions and challenges to some of the basic assumptions in the report, assumptions of “what good looks like” for women, that are so deeply held they are almost invisible.? Assumptions like:

• Big Corporate America (i.e. McKinsey clients, Fortune 500 types) represents “the workplace”.
• “Success” professionally means succeeding within the existing structures and cultures of these organisations i.e. that’s what women should aspire to, to achieve “equality”.
• “Succeeding” or “progressing” means moving up the corporate ladder in a very traditional way measured by rank in a traditional corporate hierarchy.
• “Equality” means “population parity” ie the largest age group in the US is aged 30-34, of which 49% are women so they should be 49% of the workforce at manager or similar level, less than this and the report's assumption is of underrepresentation.

In this report’s assumptions of progress, my career mostly doesn’t rate; I have potentially failed myself and failed my gender for not aspiring to and achieving the c-suite.? And if it wasn’t my fault it was a societal and corporate failure.

When I looked around the virtual room this morning during our WPR community meetup, I saw a bunch of happy, healthy, successful, smart women aged from our early thirties though to our mid-fifties.? Some are mums, some are parental carers, some are single and some partnered.? We live across Asia, Australia and north America.? We are female, but we are incredibly diverse.

And not one of us works in a “big corporate”.

Not because we have not had the opportunity (most of us have tried this path) but because WE have chosen not to.?

Not society, not faceless executives.?

We have made our own choices about what a successful professional career is, and THIS is our definition of equality of opportunity for women.?

Options, opportunity, choice to decide the course of our careers and how we integrate this with our personal lives.? Not necessarily climbing the corporate ladder because this is what society defines as successful, as equality.

As a university student studying business in the early nineties, in a course where about 25% of us were female, my ambition on graduating was to achieve the McKinsey model of a successful female professional.? Armed with a bunch of distinctions, a suit, and an internship at a global real estate firm under my belt, I knew I could compete with the best of my male peers.?

Fast forward 10 years to when, somewhat disillusioned by corporate executive bickering, “queen bee” female directors (in hindsight I understand how tough women had to be to survive in an executive role in the nineties) and back-stabbing female coworkers, I had struck out on my own for the first?- but not the last – time in my career.? I still worked with corporate clients, wore a suit in the city and thought I that I was successful, and living up to my potential.? That is, until my university colleagues started being promoted, and my little brother entered the workforce and quickly established himself as someone going places in the banking industry.?

And I questioned my definition of professional success. Had I made a mistake in turning my back on the corporate ladder?

I've come a long way since then, and am completely comfortable with all the career choices I have made, including those to join and leave big corporates, to build and lead new businesses and then to move on when the status quo becomes stifling, and now to transition to a portfolio of roles that I find challenging and rewarding during this later stage of my professional journey.

And I'm heartened by the shifts I have seen in the mindsets and behaviours of professional women around me over the last 20 years, a desire to question the business world norms that is increasingly reflected in mainstream and management media.

So I’d like to share an alternate version version of what women in the workforce can (not should) look like (source https://www.gemconsortium.org/report/51352):

• Nearly 1 in every 3 entrepreneurs running established businesses is a woman. Globally, 1.47 women are solopreneurs for every 1 male solopreneur.
• Women represent 1 in 4 high-growth entrepreneurs globally, with higher proportions in low-income countries and North America.
• About 50% of women entrepreneurs reported taking steps to maximize the social impact of their businesses and about 80% had taken steps to minimize the environmental impact of their business over the past year.?

“More attention needs to be given to women who are starting and growing high growth, high innovation and large market businesses. Stereotypes that frame women entrepreneurs as a disadvantaged group feed a false narrative that women lack the same competency as men regarding business leadership.” Global Entrepreneur Monitor

That being said, what happens in major corporate matters more broadly.?

Although less than 1% of all firms in the US have over 500 employees, this small group of businesses employs 50% of the nation’s private sector workforce, with most of those employees working for C-corporations. Some of the world’s largest companies employ nearly a quarter of a million people each, control much of the global economy and trade flows, and influence our institutions.? Our perceptions of personal, professional and ESG priorities are shaped by the behaviour of these firms.

And there are some persistently concerning statistics in the McKinsey report with regards to the gender gap between ‘entry level’ and ‘manager’ roles in corporates (but face it, who in their right mind would aspire to being a manager in a corporate these days?) and what’s starting to look worrisomely like media- and DEI-friendly female and diverse hires at the top (I hate to say this smacks of corporate box ticking as I’m sure these women more than merit their positions and probably outperform many of their male peers in similar roles, but….).

Equality of opportunity, of choice remains an elusive goal for women.? But I feel we are farther along the path than this report suggests, because we are moving to a broader and more inclusive understanding of what gender progress in the workforce could look like.?

To my mind, as leaders and as members of society we should not limit our definition of “equality” to the demographic representation of women and minorities across the global corporate ladder, but rather expand our definition of progress to embrace equality of opportunity to participate professionally and personally in society, in a way that we have some degree of choice over.?

This isn’t just what women should aspire to, it should be what society aspires to for all its members.

This edition of The Regenerative Edge was inspired by my conversation this morning with a group of professional women I have had the good fortune to journey with through good and bad times professionally and personally, women I admire for their wisdom, empathy and independence.? You know who you are!