Review: IWD 2021 Webinar “Women in Leadership”
March 16, 2021
To celebrate the International Women’s Day, on 10 March 2021 we brought our alumni community together with an outstanding panel of LSE alumni women leaders. We would like to extend our deepest thanks to our guest speakers: senior and accomplished women – from business, civil society and government – who shared their stories on navigating the world of work. And, of course, thanks to all those who attended and took part!
Our speakers:
Moderated by Maria Sotirou, President of the LSE AAB, the event explored areas such as the absence of women at the top of organisations, the confidence gap, cultural and institutional barriers to female success, and what is key for other women to keep succeeding too.
Some key take-aways from the session:
- When thinking about a career plan, be prepared to have an open mind and seize opportunities as they come.
There is no recipe for life – no one can know where they will end up. So remain open-minded and follow opportunities as they present themselves. For Dr Mandeep Rai, purpose is what guided her career choices. She recommended participants to reach out and pivot to those directions that made sense, and not just those that are visible to you. Kanika Seth highlighted some of the questions to consider when thinking about career choices: Is this aligned with my values? Is this interesting to me? Will it challenge me and will I grow from this?
- Work on the critical success factors to empowering women in the workplace
Women put in so much effort, but barriers to success persist. Glass ceilings may yield to certain individuals, but this is not happening at scale. However, the case for diversity is so strong that it seems odd that we are still having to talk about it. Women need to keep stepping over obstacles and keep persevering. Women should not be asking for permission to open doors.
To that end, participants wanted to know how to get more support from other women, but also by involving men. Dr Mandeep Rai highlighted the importance of role models, but also the importance of giving tips and tricks on how things are done. Support networks can be incredibly helpful for women, such as a sponsor (someone in your business who believes in you and your talents); a mentor (someone with an outside perspective who can provide a much broader picture) or even a coach (someone who provides you guidance on concrete steps you should take to accomplish your objectives). Establishing a safe network for “women supporting each other”. This is crucial as you climb up the ladder explained Lucia Kleštincová, as some women don’t dare to speak up.
- Find your own leadership style
One participant mentioned that there are sometimes preconceived notions about what you need as personality traits to be a leader or to be successful. These are often typically masculine traits – being loud, bold, very confident. Women, on the contrary, might be more drawn to perfectionism, because they have long learned that they are judged on how we speak rather than content.
Being an introvert, however, is not seen as a sign of weakness, and these preconceived notions should be forgotten. Introverts can be just as capable to carry feminine leadership. Natasha Bertaud explained that it’s important for each woman to find her own style of leadership. It doesn’t necessarily have to be done in an assertive way we may have seen men do in the past. By being trustworthy and knowing what you are doing, you can develop an approach that works for you and that is true to who you are.
- How do we make work-life balance work?
It is very tricky and there is no “one-size-fits-all” answer but we need to make sure people are given the opportunity to succeed whilst caring for a family. Covid-19 has been a great leveller that allows for a balance – it has forced many organisations to move to an output-based working world. Now we need to keep this in a post-Covid world.
- Make a personal commitment to improve male dominated work environments
The priority for high-performing organisations is to select the best candidate for the job. But what if we unconsciously drive the best candidates away before they even apply? This may, in fact, be the case with unconscious gender bias in our job descriptions. We see that masculine worded job descriptions discourage women from applying to those jobs, regardless of whether the job was stereotypically male, female, or gender neutral. As women, we should work to challenge this. We can make it a personal mission to understand more deeply what drives the sub-conscious bias or the male-dominated culture. Then we can experiment to improve this state of affairs.
We, at the LSE AAB, commit to keeping the theme of empowering women in mind every day, and not just for International Women’s Day. What about you?
