35. "My Path To Leadership"

This week for book club I read 'Women and Leadership' by Julia Gillard and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. In this book, the authors created and tested eight hypotheses by asking eight women in politics what their experiences have been, as well as the author's experiences in their political career. This week I analyse my research career through their framework.

In this week's blog post I will reflect on the hypothesis and questions Gillard and Okonjo-Iweala have posed to eight women leaders in politics to see how relevant these hypotheses have been ti my research career thus far.

I want to start off saying, I am not a leader, I have been a manger for a couple of years. And one of the interesting things about this book is that your answers to these questions may change based on where you are in your career. Julia Gillard says her perception of gender and its impact has changed throughout her career, she see it differently today compared to when she was the Australian prime minister. Now that I am aware of this framework, I look forward to seeing how my answers to these questions change as over the course of my career and see if being female impacts on those opportunities or the number of women sitting at the table.

I will set out this blog post by hypothesis and include the questions and/or hypotheses the authors have used to ask each female leader about their experiences on each topic.

Hypothesis One: You Go Girl

Hypothesis 1: One key to enabling a woman to become a leader is a childhood in which she is taught she is not lesser than the boys, and to aim high.

Questions to flesh out hypotheses:

1.Did you ever dream about being a leader as a child?

2.Can you talk to us about key people who influenced your views as a child and helped form who you are today?

3.Can we probe specifically around the influence of your father and mother?

4.Can you please tell us about your education and what role it played, if any, in setting you up for your leadership journey? What were you taught as a young girl about the expectations for your future role in life?

I was raised in a household where both my parents did not finish high school. My mother was a nurse throughout my childhood and after my parents separated trained herself to become an accountant. My father was a marketing executive for a Japanese piano and musical instrument company. He worked his way up to that position using his experience only, and did not seek any further education or training.

I am the youngest of three siblings and although my brother and sister are only 18 months apart, my brother and I (5 year age difference) were inseparable. I was a tom boy and spent most of my free time with my brother in the bush, playing outside, watching TV or swimming in the pool.

Beyond telling us to do our homework, my parents did not tell us to pursue education. As a child, I spent a lot of time with a maternal aunt who was a primary school principal. She read, and read, and read. Whenever I wanted to know what books I should read I would call her and she would tell me the names of a few titles or book series. My Aunt and I often spent holidays together watching movies and just experiencing life together. Again, she did not push an education agenda on me, but somehow I knew that education would me my way out.

As a child I never thought I was anything special, I was not particularly smart, I was athletic, but I did have a dogged determination. So whenever I did not do well on a test I would strive to do better next time. My parents always compared me to my smarter and more well-behaved friends, making me feel like I was somehow deficient and not enough, but in the end I only competed with myself. It didn't matter how other people performed, if I felt I cold have done better then I would be disappointed in myself.

The fact that my parents did not engage with my schoolwork gave me a sense of independence. If I didn't tell myself to get my schoolwork done I would get in trouble at school and I hated that, as well as failing. So I always did my homework. By the time I got to the HSC I got a score in the 90s which allowed me to get into Sydney University. I struggled through undergrad, but made it through with a Credit (65) average. By Masters, I actually got that doing uni was a skill like any other and I just needed to figure out what worked for me. As I worked full-time, I became very organised and deadline driven to complete my coursework in the limited time I had available to me. I finished Masters with just under a HD (85) average and a few years later completed my PhD.

I think the fact that I needed to rely on myself to achieve my educational goals gave me a strength I have been able to draw on throughout my career. Since my PhD, I know whatever challenge comes my way I will be able to face it head on and give it my best shot.

In terms of my leadership, I feel like I have had many inadequate supervisors who were not trained on how to be leaders. I have also had a few good supervisors who I have also learnt a ton from. As I lead more junior staff, I try to do better than my managers before me, and lear from their mistakes.

Hypothesis Two: It's All About The Hair

Hypothesis 1: Women leaders end up losing valuable time on matters related to their appearance.

Hypothesis 2: Appearance has historically been and continues to be the basis on which women are judged.

Hypothesis 3: We not only judge women on their looks, but we tightly constrain the ideal against which they are to be measured.

Questions to flesh out hypotheses:

1.During your leadership, were your appearance and clothing focused on more than was commonly done for male leaders?

2.What did you do, if anything, to manage the interest in your appearance?

3.Did you view any disproportionate interest in your looks as taking political oxygen from your policy messages?

It was interesting to read how women in the public eye manage their look. I doubt if men had been interviewed if they would have had such thoughtful answers which shows appearance is something that women do need to think about, and men less so.

During Gillard's time as prime minister, I recall the newspapers constantly bringing up her appearance and what she was wearing often overshadowed her achievements. I do not think any of the male prime minister's have had this level of scrutiny on their appearance, except for maybe John Howard's eyebrows, and Donald Trump's appearance is frequently mentioned in the media today.

As I read about how these women had to cultivate a look, and ensure it was consistent so as not to annoy voters. I was also reminded of this double-standard in journalism when on the Today Show in Australia, the male co-anchor Karl Stefanovic announced he had worn the same suit everyday on the show for the past year to highlight the sexism he saw his female co-hosts go through. He saw the effort that went into dressing his female colleagues and the response (backlash) if the public did not like their outfit on a specific day or if they re-wore the same outfit. But no one emailed their dismay about Karl wearing the same suit for a year. Is this because we expect men to wear suits, it is their uniform and we do not critique men's appearance as much as we do women's?

In the book, the authors also highlight the role of men helping women in their career. Karl Stefanovic's experiment demonstrated that everyone can all out sexism and bring awareness of unacceptable behaviour, not only women.

In my research career, I have not thought much about my appearance. I have always had to dress 'professionally', but apart from that no other rules were given as to how I dress. In recent times, some universities and other organisations do give media training, and I would be surprised if appearance was not covered in this training.

I have not always been completely professional in my appearance, I did dye my hair purple in one position where I knew I would not be seeing any patients. It wasn't a professional choice, but I did it for me because I wanted purple hair. As far as I could tell there were no repercussions but I wonder what the response would be if any one of the female leaders in this book went to do a media interview with purple hair. What would the response be? Would her approval rating increase or decrease in the subsequent days and weeks? Would she be seen as having a mental breakdown?

There have been two instances where my appearance has drawn a comment.

Once was in a more general sense, where I worked for a male professor and many of the researchers on the team were young females. So we were often referred to as a harem. This word was used in two different workplaces. Was this just a joke? Or as scientists were we being diminished to our sex and age? Implying we got the jobs because we were young and female and not because of our talent? I doubt the word harem would have been used if a female professors had many young male researchers working for her.

The second time it was much more personal. I was at a Christmas party and a senior professor said "When I first saw you BB I wasn't sure about you being a PhD student, I mean you have really large breasts so I wasn't sure how smart you would be." This comment clearly alludes to the smart/pretty paradox, a girl can either be attractive or smart. In my case, you can either be buxom or smart. This comment did not cause me any offense. I knew the professor well, and I liked them, they often said blunt comments. The next day they emailed me and apologised for their comment saying it was totally out of line. I am not condoning or defending the comment, I am just saying it didn't affect me.

It would be interesting to see the impact of the start-up style that Steve Jobs popularised, the same 'uniform' each day e.g. black turtleneck, would have on politics. If a person, regardless of sex wore the same outfit each day, would it draw a comment after a short time? Towards the end of the book the authors write multiple lessons for female leaders to consider going forward, and one of them is to endorse a 'uniform'. This is so eventually, the press will stop commenting on their appearance because it is the same each day, and there is nothing new to write about.

Hypothesis Three: Shrill Or Soft - The Style Conundrum

Hypothesis 1: Comparable behaviours in male and female leaders elicit different reactions.

Hypothesis 2: In the style they exhibited as leaders, our interviewees were aware of this leadership style-gender conundrum and self-limited their behaviours as a result.

The authors do not provide the questions they asked for any of the remaining hypotheses. So instead just report the hypotheses they have given for each section.

I have definitely checked some of my 'female' behaviour in front of colleagues, and particularly bosses. I vowed never to cry in front of a boss, and never to get the coffee. I also find in meetings, despite the number of researchers in the room at the same pay level/experience, women are repeatedly asked to take the notes over men.

In one of my early research roles, I also have encountered male managers expecting less productivity of male researchers, and more productivity of female researchers. Whilst simultaneously being more critical of female researchers ideas and outputs. Therefore, as the bar was set lower for male colleagues they were seen as excelling and given more opportunities. There were very clear instances of the male colleague clearly failing to produce their deliverables, and the work was simply reassigned to a female, and then the male was given a new project. This leniency was never given to the females on the team.

One of female colleagues did cry in front of this male manager, and after this he treated her more kindly. So in this instance, by exhibiting the 'female' trait of being emotional (crying) changed the managers behaviour towards her.

Hypothesis Four: She's A Bit Of A Bitch

Hypothesis 1: As a result of unconscious bias, it is generally assumed that women with power are unlikeable, or in the vernacular, bitchy.

I have had both male and female managers, supervisors and bosses. I have actually never even thought 'oh she's a bit of a bitch'. But I think this is more a reflection of my hating the word 'bitch' and never ever using it in speech or thinking it. I have definitely had managers where I have thought 'he's a bit of an asshole/douchebag'.

I have found that it doesn't matter what sex a manager is, I react to them based on their management style. I had one boss who was an asshole but I ended up working for him for a long time because he treated me consistently. I had another manager who I got on well with, but I didn't work for them for too long as they quickly became unpredictable and a bully.

I do think that men and women managers are judged differently based on their sex. I think women who are assertive will be judged more harshly than a man who is assertive. I think a woman who cry will be judged as overly emotional and fragile, whereas a man will be seen as being brave. Earlier in my career, I also recall colleagues making generalisations about managers based on their sex saying 'I work better with a male manager because of ....', or being warned 'don't work for a female manager they ....'. I can't remember the exact words that were used, but I think this advice is given based on that person's work history, not sex in general.

Hypothesis Five: Who's Minding The Kids?

Hypothesis 1: Having children and being a leader plays out differently for women than it does for men.

Hypothesis 2: While being childless means a woman leader has not had to face the challenges of combining work and family life, it brings other issues.

I don't have any experience with this area of the book. I do not have any children. I have only tried to merge my career with a partner, not children. However, some of my female friends have chosen not to have children and they do feel they are judged because of this choice.

In my experience in academia, some women chose to get pregnant/have a baby during their PhD candidature. This makes sense because during your PhD you have a lot of autonomy, you can set your own hours and as long as you are making sufficient progress on the PhD your supervisor should support you. However, this was the situation pre-COVID, and in my experience, academia was not flexible in working from home. If you were working, you needed to be sitting at your desk at the office. This situation may become more flexible post-COVID.

Furthermore, when you complete your PhD, your clock starts. The time since finishing your PhD is a common measure for grant applications. If you have had a career break due to maternity leave or sickness, it is taken into consideration but it will also negatively impact the flow of your research program resulting in a gap in your track record (number of publication). Also, the extent of the special consideration may be applied differently across funding bodies.

There is a trade off though.

Anecdotally, there is a saying that every pregnancy adds at least a year to your PhD candidature. Universities may become more flexible in working arrangement post-COVID, but they will likely continue to be strict on students completing their PhD in 3.5 years. (As the university gets money from the government for every completed PhD within this time frame. If students take longer to complete their PhD this payment may be jeopardised). Like any degree, you can apply for an extension due to maternity leave, but it will be interesting to see if these extensions become harder to receive in the future, or if there is a cap on how many extensions yo ca apply for.

I was planning on having children once I got my own funding as an early career researcher. This funding is for 4 years, and I would not be completely dependent on a more senior academic for a job. I figured I would also have the time to make up for the gap in my track record due to maternity leave. But alas, life happened and I left academia before receiving any grant funding.

Do men wonder and plan when they will have children in their career?

Hypothesis Six: A Special Place In Hell - Do Women Really Support Women?

Hypothesis 1: On their pathway to power, our women leaders felt generally supported by women, but the higher they climbed the more they saw the animosity of the politics of scarcity can engender.

Hypothesis 2: Female role-modelling, mentorship and sponsorship had less and less relevance as our women rose through the ranks.

This hypothesis has been interesting to reflect on. Like many of the women in the book, I have had input from both men and women throughout my career. In terms of strategically planning my career I have had only one person, a female, take the time to guide me through that process. But I would not call them a mentor or a sponsor as defined in this book.

I was going to stop this entry there as I didn't think I had encountered any women stopping me from progressing in my career but then I remembered one female manager who I did not get along with. Despite multiple attempts to fix this relationship, it did not get better. My role as a researcher was highly relevant to the company's future, yet I was made redundant from my position. This manager had the power to save my job, but instead she was the one who suggested I be made redundant. It is unclear whether the fact we were both female impacted on this relationship or the outcome.

Over time, working in this environment eroded my self-confidence and my perception of whether I was even a competent worker. In this regard, I definitely agreed with Christine's opinion that sometimes a job just isn't worth being exhausted, go do or try something different. Don't ever let the fear of the unknown be the reason that you stand still.

I have also had experiences where women do support each other unconditionally. Like Michelle, I have a group of female researchers who I came to know through my first research job, we have all moved up through the ranks of academia. We all have PhDs in various areas and we have worked as a support network for each other throughout the varying directions our careers have taken us.

I also enjoy friendships with male colleagues. I have befriended all my male friends at other workplaces, and they are from many disciplines. I find it is always good to get advice from different perspectives, ask them the reasons for their advice, and then make I make the best decision for me. It is important for me to own all of my decisions, because I need to own the consequences of these actions. In the past I have made decisions to please other people and when they have not worked out I have been angry with myself because I knew it was the wrong decision for me, but I did it anyway. Since then, I go with my gut, own my mistakes and learn from them.

Hypothesis Seven: Modern-Day Salem

Hypothesis 1: Male leaders benefit from greater grace and forgiveness in the event of wrongdoing, whereas women are punished more harshly.

Hypothesis 2: In times of political trouble, the language and imagery surrounding an embattled women leader becomes more gendered.

Hypothesis 3: Women leaders are disproportionately likely to become ensnared in legal proceedings rather than having scandals remain in the world of politics.

I do not feel I have had any job experience relevant to this hypothesis. So encourage you to reflect on these hypotheses in your own career.

Hypothesis Eight: The Role-Modelling Riddle

Hypothesis 1: Exposure to women in leadership roles enables women and girls to see the door is open and encourages them to step through it.

I do not have much to say about female role models as I do not believe they have played a big role in my life. Historically, I have no doubt all the female trail-blazer scientists who have gone before me have made my path easier, but I did not seek their career or follow their career path. I followed my own path.

Despite no one in my family ever going to university before me, I have completed three degrees (a Liberal Studies degree with an Honours year, Masters in Criminology and a PhD in pharmacoepidemiology. As you can see, this is not a direct career path focused on one area).

As an undergraduate, I majored in psychology as I believe everyone's mind is fascinating. When I finished my degree, I then decided I would like to become a forensic psychiatrist. At this point, I was working with multiple female psychiatrists on a daily basis which may have factored into my desire to become a doctor. I was also watching a lot of crime drama and true crime documentaries. That was the world I wanted to be in. But after sitting the GAMSAT twice, not getting a mark high enough for post-graduate entry, and getting a PhD scholarship. I decided to do a PhD instead. During the PhD, I fell in love with health data and this has become the focus of my career since then.

Once I started working in academia, I was exposed to many people, male and female, who had walked the academic path which made it easier to do.

How would you answer these questions? What has been your path to leadership? How many of the above hypotheses do you relate to? Let me know your experience by leaving a comment below or emailing me at AuthenticResearchExperiences@gmail.com

BB

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

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