In the first part of this series, I shared seven myths that get in the way of achieving leadership gender diversity and equity in companies and stifle women’s career advancement.

In a nutshell, I shared research that debunks myths like “not having enough ambition,” “it’s hard to juggle with kids,” “lack of confidence,” or “not having strong enough negotiation or leadership skills.” The research just doesn’t support those assumptions!

How do we keep believing those assumptions despite the lack of evidence?

Well, just like in most aspects of our human lives, we (as imperfect humans) have biases that color our world.

Are you rolling your eyes? I know, I know. You may be thinking at this point, “Yeah, yeah, we all have biases… But I don’t because I’m fully aware of mine, so I don’t have to read this.”

Uh-huh.

We all have this bias as well: the belief that somehow we’re the one human being who is impervious to being biased because we’ve done our work to become a more self-actualized human being.

Just teasing! It’s so hard right now to talk about bias without losing people, shutting them down, or causing them to feel defensive...

If it makes you feel better, having any bias (including the one where you tell yourself you have no biases) means you have a working brain! A working brain that is just trying to do its best to make sense of the overwhelming amount of information coming at it each day.

So let’s take a moment to acknowledge we’re all human and we all have our ways of making sense of this complicated world.

Thank your brain for serving as a filtering mechanism to keep us from getting overwhelmed with too much information... AND... help it keep growing and getting better in its analysis.

With that growth mindset in mind, let’s stretch and grow it now by considering your brain’s potential gender biases.

How can we help our brain become more effective in its filtering mechanism around gender biases?

The first step is just starting to become more aware of how easy it is to miss the different ways our brain is misunderstanding or misinterpreting information that causes us to be less effective in supporting women.

Here are 7 biases that happen often. See how often you can catch them happening. Each time you can catch them and adjust, you are making your brain more effective AND helping improve gender equity—a win-win for all!

Performance evaluation bias. In performance reviews, men are rated more often on their potential, whereas women are rated more often on what they already achieved. Check out this incredible TED talk by Dana Kanza on her research regarding this type of bias in the entrepreneur and venture capital world. Women also receive less useful direct feedback, and feedback that is not always helpful to advancing their careers. For example, getting feedback about how to manage their office relationships or recommendations to step into more supportive office roles (see benevolent sexism, below).
Motherhood bias. This is the bias that assumes women are less committed to their careers if they become mothers (like they can't have more than one thing they're passionate about or good at?). (“Oh, she has two little ones at home—her hands are already plenty full.”) As a result, they are also held to higher standards and offered fewer leadership opportunities. Women have to constantly prove that they are as committed (or more) to their careers once they have children. This also takes a toll on their ability to come to work with their full selves—many will hold back sharing their personal lives for fear of how this bias would be used against them.
Leadership bias. This is the belief that only one type of leadership style works best. Both men and women have less faith that different leadership styles will be as effective, despite the evidence that many leadership styles work well, that different styles work better for different situations, and that the leadership styles many women bring to the workforce better meet the current demands for successful companies. (See also internalized gender bias below)
Benevolent sexism. Women are just as committed to their careers and find work-life balance just as challenging as men do. Yet they are encouraged more often to take accommodations, such as going part-time and shifting to internally facing roles, which derails their careers. Benevolent sexism is when supervisors make decisions for, instead of with, their female employees that, on the surface, appears to be thoughtful about helping women who “are juggling a lot,” but in fact are overprotective and even patronizing. It overlooks women’s own career advancement interests and capacity for good decision-making about their own lives. To change this, supervisors need to offer opportunities to all qualified employees regardless of gender (or race, disability status, age, etc.) and allow the employee the opportunity to say whether they can handle it or not.
Internalized gender bias. Gender bias or sexism, like other biases, can become internalized by the very people experiencing it. For example, in the case of “imposter syndrome” in which women start to believe they are not good enough... after receiving a lifetime of messages that they are not good enough. To compound this, there are services like women’s leadership programs that perpetuate these biases by focusing on fixing women’s “confidence issues” (a major pet peeve of mine) without acknowledging the powerful external forces affecting things like confidence.
The “You’re too good” bias: According to Wojcik’s (2014) research, “women often get ‘stuck’ in midlevel roles because their managers view them as essential and reliable and don't want to lose them.” Yes, this actually happens!
The “Women are too emotional” bias. This one happens all too often to Black and Latina women. They continue to be perceived as “too loud,” “too angry,” or “too emotional” even when they are being calm but direct. Men who display much more intense emotional outbursts like flying off the handle, being aggressive, bullying, yelling, and even cursing at employees, and rarely held to the same negative judgment (or even held accountable for the harm they cause) and sometimes are even lauded for demonstrating “strong” or “passionate" leadership qualities. If one of your female employees gets “too emotional,” trust me that it’s not because she hasn’t tried many times to share the same information in a calm way. It’s more likely because she has not been heard the last few attempts and now is intentionally trying to get your attention. Help your brain adjust and pay attention.

There are so many more I have not listed here, but this is a start. Women who also have a disability, belong to a racial/ethnic “minority-status” group, or have experienced marginalization in other ways experience multiple biases that are compounded, creating even further barriers.

Now what? How do we address these biases?

Well, I’m not going to give you the typical answer of “more implicit bias training!” That’s a helpful start to increase awareness about how your brain may be processing information, but current research indicates that it only goes so far and it doesn’t change behavior long-term.

In my next post, I will share the one thing I think will make the greatest difference. And it’s completely within our power—and empowering for all. Hint: It’s not about fixing women…

Stay tuned!

In the meantime while you wait, take a look at this resource developed by McKinsey and Lean-In—they created activity cards that include these intersectional identities and the biases encountered.

To read the other parts of the series:

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