Women leaders, it seems, struggle with authority, according to an executive coach I spoke to recently.
My instinctive response to this proposition is to simply agree and move on. After all, when the men in authority habitually say that women deserve less responsibility and pay, it seems only logical to dispute their authority.
But this is not the nub of the issue raised by Jennifer Garvey Berger, a coach and a senior facilitator with the Leadership Circle Asia Pacific. Berger says that women have a problem making friends with their own authority, their own ability to be in charge.
Men and women struggle with authority — it is not solely a gender issue. But it is more common for women to seek advice from her on the issue.
Berger has observed that women struggle to assume authority even when their position endows them with it. Behind this reluctance is their unpleasant experience of authority. “They have not felt good about other people’s authority over them, and they don’t feel good about their own authority over others,” Berger explained.
Women often want to come up with a new paradigm of authority, but the models for any kind of shift are few and far between. And it leads women — when we get into positions of authority such as the CEO role — to do things that are just plain silly, such as ask everyone to set aside their titles and have an open discussion, or to insist that our opinion as the leader does not carry any more weight than anyone else’s. “Of course, every single person in the room remembers that you are the CEO,” Berger said.
This kind of effort to shift perceptions of authority is just wishful thinking.
The author Thomas Moore has a fascinating take on authority, and on patriarchy. In his book Care of the Soul (now stay with me here — I’m not going to go all ooga booga), Moore describes a true sense of authority as “the feeling that you are the author of your own life, that you are the head of the household in your own affairs”. His rather radical view is that authority is the father aspect in all of us — men and women.
Moore’s take on patriarchy is also a challenge to the patriarchal politics: true patriarchy is an “absolute, profound archetypal fatherhood”, he writes. It is possible, in Moore’s view, for our social patriarchy to be like a benevolent father: providing a sense of direction, order, security, fairness, and a buttress of solid opinions and debate.
I mention these ideas because of Berger’s point that women are searching for new ways to interpret authority; they do exist.
We all know that when companies lack an authority figure, they become chaotic, disorientated and out of control.
Berger suggests that women leaders need to make clear statement about their feelings on leadership and authority. That means confessing to not yet being completely comfortable with authority, if that is the case.
“If you can find the courage to say that, there is power and authority in having the courage to do so and it is awfully good modelling,” she said. “Then everyone around you says, ‘well, this is what I am working on’.
“The clearer women can be, the more relaxed their reports can be, instead of having to figure out the game. It is not a game for leaders, but others see it that way unless the leader is very clear.”
Such conversations can be awkward; there is a degree of intimacy in fessing up to not knowing quite what you are doing. But Berger says women have strong allies.
“By and large, organisations want you to succeed,” she said. “Even when leaders really screw up, the organisation and the people within it, want the leader to turn it around. There is quite a lot of appetite for our own growth and improvement.”
*This article was originally published at LeadingCompany
Can’t agree with this.
Like anyone, if a woman is promoted to a position of authority and she has the skills and knowledge of the requirements of the workplace then there is no need to ‘fess up’.
I’ve worked under a number of female managers and they bring to the positions a lateral thinking as distinct from a few old tired male managers that discourage anything new and outside the status quo.
The author may have a point but its a bit of a generalisation.
The worst type of any manager is thinking that they have to exercise a personal power over subordinates instead of focusing on managing output as in required skills, knowledge and attitude of their workers and how to develop them successfully in the interests of the organisation.
I am with Mack The Knife. The best leaders are always the best servants, regardless of gender.
I’m really not sure about the phrase “We all know that when companies lack an authority figure, they become chaotic, disorientated and out of control.’ I think that a lot of the successful IT companies are that way because they don’t have such a paternalistic set up.
I think that there has been a search in that area for different ways to run a company which is worth investigating. It’s probably due to the experience of being ignored or disregarded in previous roles and nothing to do with gender. Nerds have their own glass ceilings in the corporate world – that’s why they often branch out on their own.
With economics being derived from the ancient Greek word for household management, which in those days was the province of women, perhaps the template for strong women leaders has already been set.
Power and authority? These women house hold managers, contrary to tradition did have the vote, sending male representatives into the dangerous marketplace (Slavery a short ship ride away)
to undertake their economic activities as well.
Yes they could actually count,read and write, run the food, clothing, health in house for the benefit of all inhabitants including their husbands whose world of business was outside this sphere.
Remeber , from the myth, Hercules’ trial of being forced to wear womens clothing and undertake these domestic tasks under the direction of Omphale? For a whole year I think.
If it was so bloody easy for the patriarchs this could hardly have become a “Herculean task of strength.”
How many businessmen could subject themseves to such authority? Hercules they ain’t!
It’s far too easy for women to forget they have personal authority when they too frequently get spoken over, ignored, passed over in promotion rounds and strggle for recognition at work. Organisational hierarchies and unrecognised bias confuse too many women into thinking they have no power – and it’s not the fault of women or men. But it must be addressed!