Are you a ladder-puller or ladder-builder?

I like to spend time with younger professional women in the institutional investing industry and I also have a number of mentees in high school and college. As readers have likely ascertained from this newsletter (or this podcast), I’m passionate about ensuring that more women and other under-represented folks are attracted to, and remain in, this profession. Recently, I’ve had a few conversations that have surfaced about competitiveness and bullying behavior between women in the workplace – women who should be working together to lift each other up. So today, let’s talk about “ladder pulling.”

According to the internet, pulling the ladder up behind you refers to behaviors that make it more difficult for others like you to follow in your footsteps and achieve similar career or social success. Ladder pullers exist everywhere, but there’s a fair amount of evidence that indicates they are more prevalent in certain workplace environments. Per Robin Ely’s work at Yale and Harvard, dating back to the 1980s, competition between women in overwhelmingly male-dominated law firms was “acute, troubling, and personal.” In firms where women had greater representation, competition remained strong but was spread more evenly across genders and was less personal in nature.

Dr. Jessica Taylor summed it up perfectly in The Independent, “The world is a horrible but very successful and effective patriarchy, and we are all brought up to live and work in it. Women and girls learn early on that they are in competition with other women and girls. Who is the prettiest? Who is the smartest? There can only be one, you see. And so they are taught to fight for the tiny scraps of power they may be afforded by crushing other women and girls.”

The research, and many anecdotes from my peers and friends, indicate that ladder pulling, gatekeeping, and bullying can be far worse for women of color, with both gender and racial bias driving their workplace experiences.

I have worked with and encountered ladder pullers throughout my career. They are relatively easy to spot. High-performing female colleague in tears in the restroom after a 1:1 with her female manager, who would not allow a single compliment to escape her mouth? Check. Junior staff member of color being berated in front of a client for using the wrong font on a presentation? Check. Mid-level manager waiting outside her boss’ door for 2 hours, leaking milk because she couldn’t take a break to pump, just to deliver a final report binder in person? Checkmate.

Each of the female bosses described above were highly motivated, had sacrificed a great deal to get to their position, and were determined to achieve continued success. In two of these cases, the women were seemingly unaware of their bullying behavior – it had become so deeply ingrained in their management approach that it was no longer done consciously.?

Luckily, there are leaders who recognize this toxic behavior and actively work to counteract it. I have worked with both men and women who are firmly dedicated to advancing their female and under-represented colleagues. And I have worked hard to be both cognizant of my own behavior, as well as the behavior of my fellow colleagues. Can I always intervene? No, but I will surely try when I can. Do I always get it right myself? No way – I worked my way up in this system and have caught myself perpetuating some of the very behaviors I am vocal about dismantling today.

Early on in my career, I noticed that many folks in the allocator seat are quite dismissive of people with investor relations-sounding titles, which are majority held by women, and I modeled that behavior. At the outset, distrusting all the “sales” people seems like a good idea: maybe you are less likely to back the wrong manager because you get to “no” really quickly. You also get to feel superior as the “real investor” and gatekeeper.

What initially seemed like a good idea is something I now deeply regret. I have worked with some of the best IR professionals in the business. Talented IR team members can be my way into a closed manager, a true partner in assessing opportunities across my portfolio, an excellent back-door check on other managers, and a critical way to effect change within an organization that needs real LP input. Many of these people are way smarter than I am, and far more credentialed. Many of these people are also women and under-represented individuals. I’m not superior to the IR professionals and neither is anyone reading this!

When I joined Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation, I learned that all parents are provided with 12 weeks of paid leave upon the birth of a child. Not going to lie: I felt jealous, mad and super sad. With my first three kids, I worked at firms that offered a nominal maternity leave (if any) – most of the time I had to use my full year of PTO days to hit 6 weeks off – and I was too afraid to do so. I was concerned about the financial hit, the potential of having no sick days for sick kids, and the reputational risk of being out of the office for that long.

The discomfort I experienced reading the benefit package was followed by a wash of shame and the now familiar determination I have to make sure every one of my employees, mentees and friends is informed and can take maximum advantage of family-friendly and employee-centric policies. Why on earth should they suffer and sacrifice in the many stupid ways that I had to? Just because my path through this industry was challenging does not mean that I am better for it. I can definitively tell you that I would have needed a lot less therapy to be where I am now if the journey had been a better one.

Over the last decade or so, I have been in a position to model the opposite of ladder-pulling behavior. My team knows: I will reach way back and literally throw you up the ladder. You need higher goals because you are excelling? I’m in. You need a bit of coaching on presence to move to the next level? I’m signing you up. You need a promotion I’m not able to offer? I’ll write your recommendation letter and be your best reference. If you are a friend, mentee, etc., you know I will push you up, back you with investment dollars (where appropriate), offer guidance and moral support, and coach you to never be a ladder puller. If you are one of the many women I know who are gate-keeping, I will call you out. I will ask you to be a more honest and open version of yourself.

To be clear, it's not just up to women to be ladder-builders. We know that corporate leadership teams are overwhelmingly white and male. It is every leader's responsibility to mentor the women and people of color coming up in their organization. Coach them on how to get that next promotion. Push back on company policies that are actively creating barriers to women and people of color advancing into leadership positions.

So where do you see yourself? Are you a ladder puller or ladder builder? What are you doing to encourage ladder-building in your organization? Feel free to share a story about when you’ve been impacted by ladder pulling in your career and how you wish your organization would have supported you. My hope is that by openly calling out this behavior people will learn to recognize and correct it.