How can male colleagues better support woman leaders? Elaine Varelas suggests doing so openly and visibly
While many promoted leaders, male and female, transition into their new roles successfully, women continue to face a unique set of challenges that their male counterparts do not. These women may try change their behaviors to better suit the workplace, when in fact, it’s the work place that may be the problem – not the women. Elaine Varelas expands on how open support for woman leaders is one way male colleagues can help them succeed.
Q: I recently promoted one of the women in my organization to a leadership role, but there’s been a lot of tension since then. She’s tried everything to try and get her team to listen to her, but they continue to either ignore her or give her a hard time. As her manager (a man) what can I do to better support her? How can I help her succeed?A:
One of the first things you’ve done to support her is to promote her. While I’d like to say that promotions are always egalitarian and merit-based, we know better. The expectations of female leaders are significantly different than male leaders. Though you say she’s tried everything, I can’t believe that’s accurate; it’s not on her to try everything. It sounds like there’s a bigger issue here that shouldn’t be her responsibility. There may be something going on in your organization that allows her team to ignore her or give her a hard time, and that needs to be addressed. If it’s because of her gender, then there is support that you need to provide and behaviors her team needs to eliminate and be accountable for.
Often colleagues of women, particularly women who were promoted, have a hard time changing their perspective after her transition into a leadership role. For this transition to be effective, women need your visible support in front of their team. They need to see you engaging with her in a way that is professional and respectful and acknowledges all of her capabilities.
In the recently published book The Fix: Overcome the Invisible Barriers That Are Holding Women Back at Work, Michelle P. King relates the following:
“Simply engaging in the same behaviors as men at work will not ensure women are treated in the same way as men because of gender stereotypes. For women to lead, they need to influence without the likability or authority automatically afforded to men. And they must do this while managing masculine norms, invisible barriers, inequality moments, gender stereotypes, and backlash.”
This situation becomes more powerful in traditionally male-dominated industries. Both men and women may be ignoring the new leader or giving her a hard time because she’s in the complicated position of being a promoted colleague and a promoted woman. Organizations need to recognize the challenges she may face in order to be successful, which is why your support becomes all the more important.
King goes on to suggest that, as a man and her manager, you can support your woman leaders by “… verbally endorsing, advocating, encouraging, and championing them,” and that “supporting women leaders like this is an intentional and powerful way for male leaders to spend their privilege.” Good for you that you want to help her succeed, and you can absolutely do that through your open support. Other managers as well, male and female, need to ensure that they visibly endorse her as publicly as possible. They need to find ways to do so that are very subtle – acknowledged, but very subtle. This is not a cause for applause, but it’s a cause for capability recognition.
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