In this episode we share some of the research - our own and others - about the challenges women who lead face in the workplace.

What we think you may find interesting is the differences in the language used in the conversations from our own research and the language that social media platforms and business publications use.

We also share more about Broughton Sanctuary, our own backgrounds and examples of the work we have done with women who lead.

We also begin to share more about the work were planning to do there in April 2024.

Find more our about Asha's work here and find out more about Paul's work here.

Hello, everyone. I'm Paul Crick from the Elevate

partnership. And I'm one of the CO hosts for the pocket Dojo

podcast.

And I'm actually seeing from learning through

doing, I'm the other co host.

Welcome to the pocket dojo, where we'll be

talking with organisational leaders about how to turn the

what of leadership into the how we actually need to do it in

practice to be more effective today. In this episode, we're

talking about the challenges that women commonly face as

leaders, and how we've helped our clients to deal with them to

leverage on them. In today's episode, we're talking about the

challenges that women commonly face as leaders, and how we've

helped our clients to deal with them.

I recently came across this really interesting,

relevant research. How did she get there, published in October

2022. By the bridge partnership, an international organisation

and leadership development consultancy, and we are left

field a design thinking studio. The purpose of the research was

to try to understand better how women can get to the top of

organisations with some really common barriers that they face.

The lived reality of women and men at work is really different.

It can be from such simple things as noticing the

temperature of a room, which has been set to a male norm to being

spoken over, which was something I personally couldn't really

identify with. When asked by the researchers, 36% of women

expressed how it was much more difficult for them to be

listened to and taken seriously, compared to 15% of their male

colleagues. To perhaps the most important of all is rising up

the ladder in an organisation if that's what women want to do.

Despite consistently higher performance, their possibilities

are often much more limited.

There's a real noticeable gap that isn't

getting any smaller. Globally, women continue to take on 75% of

the unpaid workload, acting as the caregiver for children and

elderly relatives. During the pandemic of the past three

years, women were increasingly more burned out than men. One in

four women have considered downshifting their career. It's

clear that the inherent biases exists in organisations and

society at large, and divisions are deeply entrenched. Even

though organisations are aware of the gap, they don't

seem to be any nearer to closing it. Many of the solutions that

have been tried to date and there's lots of research around

on these have been focused for the most part on fixing women,

asking them to be more demanding or assertive to lead in, in

short, to be more like men. Rather than trying to address an

unhealthy organisation support, I'd love to understand how this

research corresponds to what you found in your investigations in

early 2022.

So in thinking about this challenge, and this whole

set of challenges, one of the mistakes that's often made is to

go out and to design something that tries to make things

better, and we present it and we go, tada, isn't that better? And

everyone goes, No, it's not what we wanted. So we took the

important first step, which was really to go out and to speak

with a group of women leaders. And in the end, we ended up

speaking to 40 Women in various sectors. So we talked public

sector, we talk the nonprofit sector, and we also talk to

private sector. We also had some views from the military as well.

So we got a broad spectrum of views and experiences that told

us verbatim what some of the journeys were into leadership

and what some of those challenges were. And what we did

was we distilled those into what you see here, which are the post

it notes, so I have to fight I have to sacrifice was a common

theme. I'm tired of having to deal with stuff that men don't

want to. There was often a story that says you know, well, if

it's something emotional can someone else deal with that

because it's something that traditionally and I know these

are sweeping generalisations, but it came out of the dialogue

That said, you're dealing with more softer stuff. emotional

stuff is something that men generally seem to find more

difficult, and fed up with not being seen and heard and

supported and used as a secret weapon. I thought that was an

interesting comment. Not being able to take the rightful place

at the table, in terms of being able to speak the truth. So on

the one hand, there's this encouragement to lean in, and to

be more assertive, but when actually women are, then they're

seen as being too much or too big for their boots, or whatever

that appropriate expression is. A common theme was, there was

this constant sense of being exhausted, but always picking

themselves up. So this over this, this overwhelm that women

were experiencing, not just in the workplace, but also outside

the workplace, cause tremendous difficulty, then we had adverse

experiences, whether they were outside of work, but very often

inside of work, that we're catching up with them, you know,

they were women would be cautious working, walking into

certain situations, and would hold back, and this could drag

they felt on their performance. There was also a sense of when

women had worked hard and become successful, there was almost a

stepping back and saying, Okay, I've done this, this is great,

but what now I've been successful. And you know what,

there's something missing. And I don't know quite what that is

yet. There was also a lot of talk about wanting their career

on their own terms rather than someone else's terms. The last

interesting area was where work situations seemed to cause all

kinds of difficulties in terms of triggering responsive

behaviour or reactive behaviour, that in some ways was an overuse

strength. And people really felt that actually, it wasn't the way

that they wanted to respond or to be in the workplace.

pool that sounds like a pretty close confirmation

of what the bridge partnership and leftfield found in their

investigations. During our recent visit to Broughton

sanctuary pool, and I started a conversation about how we came

to support women leaders in organisations to be able to lead

on their own terms. This is part of what we'll be looking at in

the renewal retreat at Broughton next spring.

So there's an important book by Giles Hutchins

and Laura storm called regenerative leadership. And in

that they talk about the four disconnections that we seem to

be seeing all over the world right now. The first is the

disconnections from human between humans and nature. The

second is the apparent disconnection between masculine

energy and feminine energy. The third one is the disconnection

between mind, body and spirit. And the final one was between

logic and emotion. And the reason we're putting this

retreat together, is because we are hoping to do some work with

some senior women, to help them through the process of doing

their own reconnections to those things about right. I've

got to say, I think, you know, also just a personal

level, when we met at a leadership within in Germany

just over a year ago, she feels like so much longer. Yes, it was

last summer. You know, though, I think there was a recognition

that we you both you and I are holding combinations of those

things, and that we were really curious to bring those together,

and see how that could help to create an amazing experience for

women who want to explore these disconnections. Exactly.

And I get a sense from the research that we've

both done, that these are themes that keep coming up, over and

over again, not necessarily in that precise language, but that,

that, you know, we've reached an inflection point, and you

recognise that things need to be different. How do we do that? So

the, the, why of the retreats is to is to give women that

opportunity for exploration. Yeah,

and also just, you know, another thing that's

coming to me as we're talking is that, you know, there's a lot of

of energy and action and let's cancel everything, then, you

know, we think is, it's not working or we make these you

know, strong judgments about whether something is good or not

or whatever. And rather than sort of pour fuel on the flames

of that, wiping everything out and starting all over again.

It's really knew about exploration and healing. And

there's so many different, you know, aspects that could be

explored. So that it's a process of integration, as opposed to

let's just scratch everything and start all over again in ways

that we should do or shouldn't do and what I think we both

really want you to get away from that kind of approach to to

dealing with some of the challenge.

I agree. I think it's I think it's too easy to

throw away the baby out with the bathwater as the expression

goes. And I think you have to find where you are now, to be

able to say, right, this is where we are. This is a

recognition of how I truly feel, you know, when I take time to

explore that. And then to go through a thought process of it

as a collective and individually to think about. Okay, so where

do I want to go now and what options do I have? When I take

off? Yeah, when I take the time to slow down.

So what brought you to Broughton? i This is the

first time I've come here. Thanks, chi. Chi you inviting us

to come? Yeah, I'm loving it. It's an amazing place. I'd love

to talk a little bit more about a minute as well. But just

curious what what brought you here in the first place? Why the

connection was brought.

It was a it was a connection my wife had made with

Liz Dorsalis doors and forest guides. She does all the said,

this is going to work with us on day one. And it was a Do you

fancy doing this? It was kind of like yeah, this kind of looks

cool. And we were looking for a weekend break. And we liked the

countryside. So we took a look. And we stayed. We stayed over

and Keithley Airbnb and then we came across and we were just

bowled over by the sights, the sounds, the senses, that the all

the senses were engaged in, in a way that it's difficult to

explain, unless you get here because I know you and I've had

the conversation. I know you've got to come you've got to come.

And it's it's hard. But I think you'll agree once you get here

it kind of it's the sort of place that that impacts you in

ways that you don't expect. And it has a very calming influence.

There's a lot of nature to take in. The food is the food's

exquisite, I mean, really, really tasty. And the facilities

are just perfect. The spaces are beautifully designed there, that

we're not trying to do something in a Holiday Inn or Crowne Plaza

around Heathrow somewhere. We're actually taking time and you

know, the tempest family who curate and look after a manage

and develop the site have put poured so much into the design

and making it work specifically for all kinds of different

retreats. So it just it just fit so that's how I got here.

Yeah, and it's been amazing for me just we haven't

been here even 24 hours. I'm on the back of about flew and I had

serious doubts about whether I was even gonna make on the plane

and I thought I you know, great to see you guys and I brought

in, you know, the templates, family and everybody here who

made it real effort to working muscle I didn't want to, you

know, let them down and I have to say even on the train up from

London from Leeds. So I just get off it, skipped it and go back.

And then of course I'm not going to do that and I'm so glad that

I'm here. And I mean apart from the beauty and the care and the

love that is so apparent in everything that we've

experienced just in these you know less than a day really. I'm

really struck by all these different spaces so it's October

in Yorkshire the weather is what it is and yeah, I've really

enjoyed actually even being out when you and I went down to the

river yesterday, we did a very you know full kind of about to

burst its banks type River in the driving rain and blustering

is a gentle adjective to describe the wind and we went up

to those looking at here is the edges of the moor and Cameron,

the general manager here took to your wife and myself out in a

you know, serious bit of land rover, well, whatever pick up

truck through a forge that was was nearly as swelling as the

river and up to one of the houses up there which was you

know, handling a gale and it just was so evocative and

powerful. And the different spaces that we've walked around

here, I'm astonished. I've done my own, you know, work in

retreat. I've lived in a Buddhist community in the heart

of Scotland. I've Been to different things around the

world. And I'm really struck by what, what has been created

here. So these really different spaces, some are very elegant,

some are more kind of functional. But there's a really

strong, energetic. I mean, I feel amazing for somebody who's

just getting over the flu. I love the vegan food, I love the

different energy of these spaces, like you say, you know,

can cater for so many different things in ways that really

retreat in particular so much about the place.

It is, and it aligns with the work they're doing here

in terms of regeneration, renewal, rediscovery,

reconnection, all those themes are what we're bringing to the

retreat. For senior women here successful strong women who've

got to a, an inflection point in their thinking, or maybe their

career to provide a relevant experience a beautiful

experience and a powerful experience, that when they go

away from it, they, they're going to be changed in some

small way to move on to whatever is right for them. So I think

this is, this is a super place to do it.

It really feels like renewal runs through the apps, I

feel renewed, gotcha. I'm a longtime coach facilitator, I

work mainly today with executive teams, I have done a lot of work

with senior women leaders, looking to find their own voice

and their own way of leading in quite hierarchical various

geopolitical, often conflict ridden, you know, mature

organisation organisational systems, which they are expected

to transform. And exploring with them, how can they do that, in

ways that allow them to be them be themselves, you know, to be

who they are. They're often, you know, really smart, powerful,

competitive, high achieving, you know, amazing women that do

amazing things in their spare time that, you know, I'm like,

astounded by I don't I, that's not who I am. But I have found

that what I can bring, as a woman moving through those

systems, as somebody who comes in and out and, you know, knows

them well, systems, knows the dynamics knows the challenges,

knows the stories, narratives that get told, can be really

effective, and helping them to find their own way through. So

that's what is bringing me into, into doing the work. And in

coming together with Paul, we met at a leadership circle

events. That's one of the systems of leadership that we've

both been interested in along the way. And an event not much

more than a year ago. And I'll let Paul, you know, talk about

your own work in that but in, you know, starting to experiment

with Paul about sort of the the work that he will also bring, I

think into the retreat, there was a really lovely connection

of bringing that in talks mentioned about the disconnect

between masculine and feminine and being in nature. And I think

those were, for me at least the the particular sort of things

that got me really curious about how could we bring these, you

know, who we are, together into something to create the kind of

experience we want to offer to the women that will take part?

Yeah, absolutely.

That my work has been. So I've been in coats for

13 years. And as part of becoming a coach, you end up

doing your own work.

Tangential part?

Yeah, absolutely fundamental. And what's been

interesting is when you then go out into the world and say, Hey,

I'm a coach, who can I serve? My clients have been senior women,

not because I've necessarily gone out and said, Hey, senior

women come and work with me, but simply somehow, that's the way

it's ended up. And they're in large corporate size, a

management consultant working all over the world for 20 plus

years. And so all kinds of things. You know, I worked with

40 Plus global companies in different states of change and

progress. And looking at systems in there. What worked, what

didn't, I got involved in training, what might be called

soft skills. And the more you delve into that, the more you

get a sense of dissatisfaction. So I was lucky to do a TED talk

in 2000. 19. And there's this astonishing figure in there,

that still boggles my mind in most people's minds, because

it's just so big, which is they estimated we spent $366 billion

globally on training leaders around the world in various

forms. There was a part of me that said, Well, if that's the

case, why is it not working? I couldn't do that. Certainly, I

couldn't figure out what that was. And so I wanted to find new

ways of moving away from let's all fly to a hotel in

Copenhagen. Let's do flip charts, let's do like old plays,

let's do models, which are all very valid. But if they're not

working, we need to do something, not necessarily throw

the baby out with the bathwater, but we need to try other things.

And my experience is you have to teach the whole person, so

therefore, you have to bring the body into play. That doesn't

happen in hotel conference rooms too often, if at all. And I

think that's essential. I think also, we need to bring people

outside. So you know, this, this flying into an airport, going to

the hotel, spending three days in a conference room, getting in

a taxi, going back to the hotel, you miss out on a whole bunch of

things that could open up people to new ideas, new ways of being

new ways of connecting, that those curriculums don't do. And

so when I came to gusting and we met, I was bringing. So if you

read my material on LinkedIn, you'll find out that I do

martial arts and my black belt in Aikido. And I wanted to find

a way, well, it's not so much that it was it's how do you take

those principles, and that we learn on the mat and learn them

off the mat, because they are so relevant. And so when I was in

gassing, and I devised a class, and fortunately, went really

well, that's where we met. And what I loved about working with

you was there is a creative tension here. Between us, that

is this masculine feminine energy in kind of the way it's

supposed to work. So we're not always sweetness and light. We

sometimes have the difficult conversation, but we get through

it. But we respect how each of us comes to the table and what

we bring, and we're still learning what that is. And we

want people to share in that we want our participants to do

that. Because what we learned from the research we did was, it

isn't about fixing women, they don't need fixing, they find

that if they're successful, they're strong. What they need

to do is reconnect and rediscover and find their voice

again, not because they never had one they did. But to go back

into that and go, Oh, I've got time I've got space I've got

other people to commune with. And yeah, we've got masculine

energy and feminine energy in the room facilitating this and

in the outdoors. Hopefully, that will become a catalyst. And I'm

sure that will spark conversations around an agenda

that takes people through a whole cognitive experience and

also an embodied experience, where there's a great deal of

freedom to explore that without judgement. And in a way that is

safe for each party. To be

realistic, you know. So coming back to the what you

were talking mentioning earlier pool about, you know, the amount

of money that's spent on leadership development. And

leadership is so contextual, with the challenges that we

face, you know, even within a very structured environment,

etc. For people to be able to find small but powerful ways to

connect with each other, to use the tech that is available in

ways it's effective, you know, to find, to use some sort of

technical language from moment affordance, and agency are

fundamental in being able to be effective. I think, you know,

that's what we really want people to be able to explore

here. And in such a way that they can go back into daily life

and for it to be really useful.

Yeah, again, in the echo chamber, that is LinkedIn,

we keep seeing the same messages over and over again, and they're

actually not. They're useful reminders in some ways, but the

reminders of what the old is, and the whole world, you know,

as we come out of out of the pandemic and into this

environment that is perhaps more chaotic than it's ever been more

uncertain than it's ever been. Then we need we need something

new to emerge. But that comes from individuals. It doesn't

come from people saying do it like us. It doesn't come from

people saying here's a change initiative that's going to

change, change your organisation because the changes we were

saying earlier when we're walking back For the woods, we

were saying how to change changes and individual decision.

And it's a dance, it's not a light switch. So our hope is

that in designing this and the way that we we bring and hold

this space, for people to use that sort of phrase gives people

an opportunity and some time to really explore what needs to be

explored for them, you know, I still can't really get my head

around that number is so huge, particularly when you look at

all the major challenges we have around the world now, and how

our leadership really doesn't seem to be doing what it needs

to

know. It's insane, isn't it? So Paul, that's a

really nice introduction to some of the work that you've been

doing to help women leaders become more effective and be

true to themselves? What did you actually do in practice to help

them and what changed for them as a result?

Well, as you'll know, yourself from your own

work, you know, no two clients are the same. The presenting

problem, or the the issue that comes into the coaching room is

never really the coaching issue. There's always something

underneath that. And I worked with someone who was about to

step into a general manager role, the general manager at

country level for a global technology organisation. And

this person was just full of self doubt, and couldn't

understand why her her peers and her bosses were saying, here's

all these great opportunities. And we want you to do this. And

we think you'd be good at this, which one would you like to

choose? And she actually came in saying, I've got this major

presentation to do. And I'm really, really robotic, or I

really get a sense of I'm robotic, and I don't feel

comfortable in my own skin. I mean, it's a common thing, that

we've had fun recording this. So it's a common thing to sort of

freeze or be be a little bit static. And the work I did with

her really looked at things that have happened in the past

certain what I would call sensitising events or important

events that had an impact on her Neurobiology. And we went back

to look at well, what was it that you needed to learn when

you experienced that, and there's a whole range of

techniques that that can be used, but I picked one, where I

took her through, essentially a thought experiment, where we

went into a theatre, and we invited the person that caused

the issue to come on stage. They had a conversation about what

went on, or what came through that was the lesson that needed

to be learned, which was actually she was very capable.

It wasn't about her it was about the other person. And therefore

that kind of balance things up. So when we came out of the

thought experiment and said, So how do you feel now, it was a

case of, well, I feel a lot lighter. Then what we did was we

actually went to a theatre, one of the West End theatres in

London. And we were lucky enough to get access to be able to put

it right on stage in front of an audience. And the idea there was

simply to give her a way of having a visual and an auditory

and an a felt sense anchor that was really positive. So we just,

we just got people to clap while she was on stage. She didn't

have to say anything. And then we just helped her stand taller

in her shoes. It wasn't that she was slouching, it was really

that she needed to feel she was standing taller. She was she was

a tall, young woman. And so that's the kind of work we do.

Or certainly I do when I'm helping people to stand in their

own voice. So it's not about fixing them. It's really tapping

into some of the stories and narratives that these women are

telling themselves that simply aren't true. We just need to

find a way of helping them to convince themselves. They're not

true. And what that does is that produces a whole set of

different creative options and opportunities that they can

pursue. So that's one example. How are you Asha?

What a fantastic story. Cool. So last year, I was

working with a senior leader in a global organisation who work

in this area of aerospace. Aerospace is obviously a really

geopolitical sector. So it's highly regulated. It's quite

hierarchical, and it's pretty old school in many ways. It's

also obviously really male dominated, although this

particular client organisation have done a lot of work to

improve diversity and bring women in, not least because stem

and women in STEM rather, is obviously you know, a really big

issue for for lots of organisations. So, this leader,

I'll call her Sarah, that's obviously not her name, but I'll

call her Sarah for now. She was new fairly new into role. She

was also in a new technical errors should come from a very

different one. So she felt quite challenged by the fact that she

was being asked to manage to lead a group of highly

experienced experts, all of whom except for one, if I remember

rightly, were were men. They were quite good at because I

hadn't been led for a while she was she came in after a, you

know, a gap of leadership. And they were quite good at avoiding

all the things that they didn't want to deal with, and getting

on with, you know, the technical areas that that were interesting

for them. So given her competitive, ambitious, you

know, intelligent nature, Sara felt really under pressure,

because she was being asked to not only, you know, get great

results out of this, this group of men who hadn't been led for

quite a long time, but also to do it in an area where they

clearly had a lot more knowledge operationally, technically, that

she did, and it was real challenge for her. So I do a lot

more collective work these days, I don't do that much work with

individuals, I think both things are really important, we need to

do our own, you know, development and then look at how

we interact with others, particularly we work in larger

organisations, because it's, it's all in the system, if you

like. So I brought them into a two day workshop, actually in

two different locations, just to kind of add that into the mix.

And we focused on we did quite a lot of preparation first to to

get some useful information, etc. But like you did with your

research, for the retreat, and we focus really on two areas. So

the inner nature, let's say, so how our own beliefs, values,

behaviours, etc, create, you know, some of the dynamics that

we obviously experience, you know, both immediately and round

teams or in a wider organisation, and then at the

challenges themselves, that operationally whatever this team

needed to look at, it was a really powerful, you know,

playful, also a couple of days in which the importance of a

facilitated dialogue really helped them to look at things

that they don't normally, you know, obviously consider on a

daily basis, because they're too caught up in the, in the, you

know, business of operational life when you're under pressure,

etc. And I think Sarah, in particular, found a couple of

things really surprising. So first of all, the fact that I

modelled or showed them, you know, demonstrated how to, to

have dialogue, rather than to come up with a plan of action to

begin with, it really helped her to to experience how it was

possible to enable her team rather than drive them to

results. It meant for the team that they could have, you know,

really open honest discussion and conversation about things

that, firstly, they don't really talk about all the time, and

that helped them to regroup. And also to bring forth you know,

all the wisdom and knowledge and experience that they had for

addressing the operational challenges, which, at the end of

the day, that was what they need to do. And so they both had this

opportunity to, to think about the deeper stuff. And then

having done that to address, you know, what it is that they

needed to do together. And the other thing that I think really

struck Sarah was the fact that people are just really busy

every day, you know, it wasn't that they didn't want to talk to

her or listen to her or that they were speaking over her.

They were quite surprised by she and the other female colleagues

shared quite a lot of you know, their, their different

experiences in the team and the guys were surprised, shocked,

who's perhaps a bit strong, but it was surprised by what they

heard. And we're very respectful and you know, made every effort

to make sure that those things would get addressed in the

future. So that kind of team collective, you know,

exploration also at a deeper level can be really, really

useful. And join us for episode two of the pocket Dojo podcast

on Monday, the 27th of November at 9am. When we'll be talking

about the importance of finding your own voice, women leader,

and ways that you can do that. As always, you'll be able to

watch us on your favourite podcast channels, including

YouTube. We'll also be on social media at LinkedIn, Facebook, and

Instagram. See you then.

Bye for now.