Women Like Me

Finding the courage to lead differently

About ten years ago, a person assigned to mentor me said something which had the opposite effect to what they intended. Talking about my career, they remarked ‘You know Fiona, corporates need women like you in leadership roles’. They were not saying anything particularly radical. It wasn’t exactly breaking news that we need more women leaders. It is a line I still hear peddled out to women today. It was meant to be seen as both a compliment and encouragement, but while I was listening to this person, a tiny alarm went off in my mind.

At first, I couldn’t figure out why it bothered me. We all know that feeling when someone says something that doesn’t land well. As the days passed, I realised I thought it was bad advice. The system needs and wants women (and men) like me alright. Why wouldn’t it? I am driven, have a desire for excellence and work hard. Like many of you too, I am sure. That wasn’t a compliment, it was a statement of fact. I could see clearly why the corporate system might want me but the question it triggered for me was: did I want it? And the answer was very clear to me. Not the version we have today.

Die-hard capitalists will tell you that when the system is working well, everyone benefits. That a rising tide lifts all boats. But that version of capitalism, if it ever existed, is long dead. Today’s version is behaving like a funnel urging resources upwards and locking wealth in more and more at the top. With that, it has shifted the power dynamics and cultural reality of the entire planet. Our social problems have escalated, our mental and physical health worsened, inequality has skyrocketed, the climate crisis is getting worse, not better, conflict is rising and authoritarianism now risks becoming widespread. This is not the world I want to live in.

What bothered me about the ‘women like you’ statement was it lacked ambition for who I could become and what the world can look like. Corporates do need women (and men) like me in leadership roles. But to do what? More of the same or something different?

No visionary leader or innovative founder has ever started something with an ambition to fit in the system as it is. They look to build new, better ecosystems. What is the point of aspiring to leadership positions if we don’t recognise the power it offers us to impact the world more positively? If we don’t have the courage to use that power to make new choices, then it is not really power. It is proximity to someone else’s power. And they are very different things.

So, when women tell me they are attending imposter syndrome training to improve their confidence, I always tell them; stop wasting your talent and time on imposter syndrome training. All that energy focused on fixing yourself when there is nothing wrong with you. You ARE an imposter. Capitalism is a system currently serving the few not the many. Of course, you feel out of place. Feeling like you don’t fit into a system that has many many problems is your superpower. It gifts you the ability to see more clearly what needs to change. Now that you have freed yourself from the additional labour of more training, you can use that space to ask bigger questions of yourself. I have no doubt the corporate system wants you. But what do you want? What would it look like if rather than trying to appease the old, you found the courage to have a vision for something new?

This matters because the problems of the world are too big for you and me as individuals. But they are not too big for business. We have to harness the power of business if we want to see real change in the world. That can only happen through us. This is true irrespective of your gender. We must develop the clarity and the courage to become the leaders that make business better.