What’s Keeping Women Out of the Boardroom?
What a fantastic session we had with Donna and Cheryl from Now Is Your Time! It was all about what’s keeping women out of the boardroom.
If you’d like to watch, click here for the full recording – it really was such an uplifting session. Donna and Cheryl have been described as motivating and down to earth, and this is exactly what this masterclass was!
Otherwise here’s a summary of the main points that were covered. There were so many valuable snippets that I can’t share it all, but there were some fantastic tips that I have included so you don’t miss out.
Everyone has a story
Donna started by telling us her story. She battled imposter syndrome as she progressed in her career in large corporate companies. And it only got worse as she became more successful and continued to achieve promotions.
She was always wondering when someone was going to ‘find out’ that she wasn’t good enough. Because she never felt good enough in herself. Something that’s extremely common in women in leadership positions especially.
Donna then told us about how she ended up in a very well paid job but that her imposter syndrome was worse than ever. She always felt guilty about working away, not having enough time with her family, or feeling like she needed to spend more time working. She couldn’t win, was overworked and overwhelmed.
At this point there were lots of comments in the Zoom chat box! Lots of others said that these feelings resonated with them and they’d been in similar positions or felt this way before.
Fast forward to today, and Donna has since done a lot of work on her mindset to change these feelings. And of course founded Now is Your Time alongside Cheryl to help other women to do the same.
I’d recommend watching the recording to listen to Donna’s full story!
The Facts
In the session we spoke a lot about women in leadership roles feeling overworked and overwhelmed – and not even realising it.
For those of us who were wondering why these experiences are so common for women in leadership roles, these facts painted a very clear picture.
- In 2020, only 5% of FTSE 100 CEOs are women.
- The FTSE 250 is even further behind with five women as CEOs.
- 23% of executive committees in the FTSE 100 were women
- Women now make up around 29% of all leadership roles in FTSE 350 companies
- Just 6% of British business have a female chief executive or managing director
And a few facts that were share specifically around maternity leave too.
- In a survey of more than 1000 women run by MMB Magazine – 72% of whom worked at management lever or above – only 18% felt happy and confident about returning to work post maternity.
- 37% felt so unsupported and isolated on their return that they considered handing in their notice, and 90% weren’t offered any formal support through a returner programme.
- Almost three in every five professional women in the UK returning to the workforce after having children or a career break move into lower-skilled and lower-paid jobs.
So what can we do to change things?
Cherly Sandberg, Facebook COO and Founder of Lean In said “Real change will come when powerful women are less of an exception. It is easy to dislike senior women because there are so few.”
So we have to change things, one woman at a time. Donna and Cheryl made it clear that although we can’t change the world around us, we can affect how we react to, and think about, certain situations.
It’s up to us to work on our own mindsets, believe that we are good enough, and that we can have what we want!
Tips from Now Is Your Time
Culture: Women should be supporting other women. Live by the values and actions you say you’re going to take to support others, don’t just pay lip service in job adverts or policy documents.
Set healthy expectations: There’s an unwritten rule that the best way to be is the first person in and the last person out of the office. This isn’t sustainable so change your thinking and encourage others to do the same.
Encouraging women to be themselves: Embrace feminine energy and what women bring to the table. Women should be respected for being women not for trying to be men.
Leadership: If you’re in a leadership position, ask other women in your team about how they’re feeling. Share with them how you’re feeling too, as this will create a climate where others can share their issues and move forward.
Individual accountability: Press for harder and faster change – it’s still too slow. Take accountability for our part the movement. As a leader are you role modelling the behaviour you want others to show? Do you set boundaries and do you have healthy working hours?
And finally… Start asking for what you want. As women, we often feel that we can’t ask for what we want. But we often create this barrier in our own heads. If you don’t ask, you don’t get!
Quick Links
Now Is Your Time is hosting a ‘Supercharge Your Self-Confidence Masterclass’ on 16th July which you can click here to sign up for.
And you can find out more about the incredible work that Cheryl and Donna do on the Now Is Your Time website.
My next session: Diversity & Inclusion
I’m very excited that my next session will be with Co-founders of 50:50 Future Lynsey and Lyndsey on Diversity and Inclusion.
Date: Wednesday 22nd July
Time: 10:00- 11:30am
Click here for the full overview and to secure your place.
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