Canvas Insights

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel said, “Little pools of water tend to become stagnant and useless, but if they are joined together to form a big lake, the atmosphere is cooled, and there is a universal benefit.”

Sardar Patel said this in the Indian context where India, being a country of contrast, needed values such as equality and inclusion to grow strong.

By extending this to the professional world, it becomes important to adopt inclusion with equity to grow stronger. Discussions about DE&I have come into the limelight, globally, in the last decade. But have we, in our country — where diversity is celebrated, truly created an equitable place for one and all?

Anita Bhogle, in her book, Equal, yet Different, tries to answer this for professional women. She calls it a research book and labels it as career catalysts for professional women.

Let’s visit the views and ideas Mrs. Bhogle presents in her book in the following sections.

For a long time, women assumed that the only route to equality was to try and be like men. But times have changed: today gender differences are celebrated, and organisations realise that teams benefit from diversity.

Men and women have very different definitions of success where a man chases designations as a symbol of his success; women on the other hand identify from the multiple roles she plays in her professional and personal life. To her, success means excelling in and balancing all her roles. Conditionings like these come in the way of her career success and need to be unlearnt.

Equal, Yet Different

A quote from Steve Waugh often stands out — “As a leader, you need to treat your teammates equally, yet differently.”

This essentially translates to how a leader needs to build teams — first, there are non-negotiables like integrity and team ethics where the rules are the same for everyone; everyone is treated equally irrespective of performance or experience. And then there are the little exceptions, small liberties, that you allow your key players because when star players are in the right frame of mind, it helps them give their best thereby improving the team’s performance — Accommodating without compromise!

Extending this to the workplace, women might need some flexibility from time to time but their performance needs to be weighed on the same scale as everyone else. To make it to the top of one’s profession, one needs to be consumed by passion/obsession with his art/trade besides ability and attitude. But the same amount of ability and attitude does not take a woman the same distance as a man because she’s often denied the luxury of being passionate about her work without worrying about anything else.

To most women, women in their family and home are their societal role models and if these role models are a certain way, then that becomes the norm for her. Breaking out of that mindset requires a lot of grit and perseverance.

Men and women are inherently built differently — generally, women have an external locus of control, and they frequently look for validation for their actions and decisions; small mistakes bother them gravely. Men and women respond to feedback very differently — women take it very personally as they hold themselves to very high standards. Women suffer from imposter syndrome far more often than men; men tend to focus more on skills they have while women on the ones they lack.

Research shows that a key personality trait held against women while being considered for leadership positions is that they are emotional beings and lack the ability to stay calm under pressure situations. but with EQ becoming a desirable trait in leaders of late, hopefully, the perceptions will change. True leaders don’t hide their emotions but, they don’t let it cloud their decision-making.

Dream Aloud

Women, generally, do not place their careers very high in terms of priority. Once they decide to place their careers on a high priority, everything else will begin to fall into place. Knowing what you want and articulating it well to people at home and work is important. Voicing your dreams makes those around you realise how serious you are about your career and that you’ve plans for yourself.

Women who harbour aspirations are in the minority. So, it becomes all the more important for them to pronounce their ambitions. Dreaming aloud is about getting on board those who believe in your potential and ambition and are willing to support you on this journey. Dreaming aloud and letting your seniors know about how you’d like to plan your career path will give them an idea of your determination to stay on track.

Investing in Yourself

If you’re serious about your career, you need to actively take charge of it. It’s only when you invest in it that it’ll reap dividends. Hard work is the greatest gift you can give yourself and your career. Learning is another one, which without doubt is the best self-investment. Ambitious people don’t lose a single opportunity to learn from formal and informal sources. Invest in yourself to get on to take up a leadership role, groom yourself at —your functional expertise, team management skills, business networking, and leadership capability.

Tripping on Guilt

As Indira Nooyi puts it, “for women, the biological clock and the career clock are totally in conflict with each other.”

Guilt is an integral part of a woman’s psyche and manifests more acutely in a working professional woman. Marriage, too, adds whole a new set of dimensions and responsibilities to a woman’s life. So does maternity. Getting back from maternity break can be challenging — six months in today’s world can be a long enough time for the business to move on.

To stay in touch, having a formal network like email with teammates on a weekly basis can help stay in touch. For longer breaks when women cannot get back to their old job, they can do something related to their line of work till they get back — a slow start is better than no start. The role of a mother comes with far more responsibility and emotion as compared to a wife or a daughter. Help your children understand what your work means to you, and how hard you’ve worked to achieve it, and they’ll respect you.

Having clear priorities and accepting the choices that follow make it easier to manage guilt. Winners feel happy and fulfilled. They maximise the opportunities that come their way, make peace with their choices, and become the best possible versions of themselves. They learn to let go and are not hard on themselves for what they are not good at or that is in their control. Isn’t that what all of us need to be at the end of the day —let go of any guilt and forge ahead with a winner mindset.

Allies and Enablers

Most successful women accept that they couldn’t have had careers without help. Managing both home and work would be impossible without support from — parents, in-laws, spouses, domestic helps. Women should look at support systems as an investment, not an expense.

Being with a good employer is certainly an important factor in ensuring that you don’t slip in your career. So is having a good boss. The smaller number of women in leadership roles can serve as role models or mentors to aspiring young women. Women should take advantage of these career enablers — mentoring, inspiring career groups, organisation-led-skill-building programmes. And, not to forget, women can learn from the more diverse pool of men. Having supportive male mentors can also help women see their shortcomings and get over their inhibitions. Finally, most of all, be your own ally!

The Diversity Agenda

Back in the day, when gender diversity initiatives were introduced, they were reduced to mere tokenism where organisations had women in their workplaces, but their viewpoints were often not ensured.

But things have changed in today’s day and age. Studies show that ethnically and gender-diverse companies are more likely to have higher financial returns above the national average. Organisations recognise that a heterogenous group is most conducive to learning if the power dynamic within the group is managed. Thus, it becomes important for companies to safeguard the interests of increasingly influential sections of society and propel them toward growth.

Women, today, are educated, career-oriented, financially independent, yet are locked in the patriarchal mindset. Here comes a need for equity over equality. While equality is about treating all people the same, equity acknowledges, understands, and accepts the differences and sees how companies can benefit from diversity. To bring this into practice, companies must frame policies by taking into account the inputs from this very group, women, while ensuring not sacrifice merit but that no segment is denied an opportunity or gets left behind.

Diversity must be a desire, not a requirement, and more than anything, women must become strong enough to shape their own destinies and aspire to do more.

The Equality Mindset

“It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out, it’s the pebble in your shoe.” — Muhammad Ali

Equality mindset implores us, women, to consciously push ourselves to take that step towards — towards identifying subconscious bias, towards demanding equality in the workplace and home, and most of all towards behaving like an equal.

This could mean — putting your hands up for difficult assignments; voicing your opinion in the familiar environment of home, and in the lesser-friendly workplace; demanding higher remuneration, ’cause it is the indicator the org attaches to your work; asking your spouse to hold charge on the domestic front. But among all these, you should not forget that to be treated equally, you must first ensure that you deliver your one hundred percent.