It’s 2017. Why are we still telling women to act like men at work?

by Sallie Krawcheck,

You may be familiar with some of the research on the power of diversity in driving company performance: that more gender diverse leadership teams can lead to higher returns on equity, lower risk, greater customer focus, increased employee engagement and greater innovation.

And you may be able to see the logic behind the power of diversity: bringing together people who have different skillsets, backgrounds, experiences and perspectives enriches a team and can lead to better decision-making. (Put another way, it’s hard to build a national championship team if your players are all point guards.)

In my new book, Own It: The Power of Women at Work, I walk through some of the qualities that women bring to the workplace: qualities such as risk-awareness, relationship focus, ability to see problems holistically, learning orientation, long-term perspective, and focus on meaning and purpose. Pretty good characteristics, right? Ones that can make companies better, right? Ones that, I would argue, are becoming even more important as the pace of change in business increases.

So, why is so much of the business advice for women out there to…..well…..act like a man? Why have so many performance reviews that I have received over the course of my career pushed me in that direction?

Take a seat at the table. Project confidence. Get rid of the up-speak. Take on p&l roles instead of support functions. Raise your hand for jobs you don’t think you’re fully prepared for, because you know the guys are. Be more forceful.

In other words, conform to how the guys are acting.

This is despite the fact that the power of diversity in driving business results is……wait for it……diversity. It’s not bringing together a bunch of people of difference and training them to behave the same way.

So why the heck do we do this?

I believe it’s because we’ve been socialized on what leadership looks like: strong, certain, confident……male. I believe it’s because it’s easier (so, so much easier) for managers to manage everyone in one way and direct them to act in one way, rather than manage them as individuals.

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