Tropes & Truths: updating your frame on women in leadership

As a mentor to women, it's your job to help your female protégés move beyond these disempowering tropes.
Once they get past the disempowering tropes, most women have the ability to find authentic ways out of helplessness, no-win scenarios and other mindblocks frustrating their success.
The good news is that many women are bypassing this kind of disempowerment, and they’re changing their workplace culture in the process.
Sadly, many of these disempowering truths are actually handed down to us by mentors we look up to. Why? Because our mentors have biases, too! Women deserve better mentoring than they often get.
What “tropes” about women in leadership need a makeover?
As I’ve worked to distill down what feels like the least empowering wisdoms passed down to working women, which desperately need to be updated, this is the short list I’ve come up with:
- You must work twice as hard for half the credit
- Never cry at work
- If you’re not projecting confidence, you have imposter syndrome
- Women are good at collaboration
- Women are uncomfortable with risk
- You need “executive presence” to break through the glass ceiling
- Women should “just ask” for a raise to close the pay gap
- Manage stress by achieving work-life balance
- Women face extra pressures and may opt out of promotions to protect themselves
Here are the new truths I suggest you explore with your protégé instead:
- Working twice as hard just earns you more work
- Emotional intelligence (EQ) at work is critical to success, and all authentic feelings are key sources of information
- Imposter syndrome is not a condition, it is a crucible of professional and personal growth
- Women are good at all kinds of leadership
- Women are comfortable with considered and managed risk
- Executive presence for women” is advice that unconsciously incorporates male stereotypes, which become a pillar of the glass ceiling
- According to research women actually DO self-advocate and ask for raises, but they encounter systemic biases and barriers to pay equity (which men don’t) that make their requests less effective
- Negotiate for work life equity
- Women DO face extra pressures, but women don’t need other people limiting their career choices under the guise of “protecting them.”
How do we change working women’s realities? How do we better empower ourselves and other women to make more empowering choices? We start by reframing these tropes for ourselves and our mentees. But don't stop there. Encourage others who mentor and coach women with these more empowering truths to pass on.
Here's a quick 1 pager of this advice you can download for easy reference.