Successful women demonstrate gender-neutral behaviours

Advice for women seeking leadership positions often sounds contradictory: State your position, but not too strongly. Be decisive, but be sure to include others. It’s okay to be ambitious, but don’t let it show. Do this, but not too much. Just be perfect, all right?

Women must demonstrate strong leadership characteristics to be appointed to senior positions, but that involves demonstrating aggressive behaviours, which often provokes a backlash.

Women frequently complain about this double standard. “My manager told me I needed to speak up in meetings, but then he told me I’d better tone it down.” “If a man had said what I said, he wouldn’t have been criticised for it.” “I asked for a raise, and he said I was being too aggressive.” Other confused women have said: “But I don’t want to act like a man.”

If we think of stereotypically male and female behaviours as each forming a circle, there is an overlapping area of behaviours that are socially acceptable for both men and women. If you look at the intersection of those two circles (and hold your mouth right), it resembles the eye of a needle.

Successful women usually use behaviours that stay mostly within the needle: they are not overly feminine, nor do they demonstrate overtly masculine behaviours. It’s not easy to thread the needle. Many women get so fed up with this Catch 22 situation that they leave their firms altogether. But if you want to become the head of your division, what can you do?

Addressing the problem

Men frequently complain that women don’t fit in with them. “She’s too stiff. She doesn’t hang out with us. She has a chip on her shoulder. She’s too emotional,” they say. And the kicker: “She lacks self-confidence”.

It’s important to build informal collegial relationships with your male colleagues. Drop by their offices, call them on the phone, engage in information exchanges with them. You may have to make the first move, but if you keep your interactions professional, your colleagues will not misinterpret your friendliness as a suggestion for a date.

Try to become part of informal conversations before and after meetings or over lunch. Consider participating in your male colleagues’ activities outside of work too, but be careful to keep your behaviour businesslike (i.e. you’re not obliged to close down the bar!).

As the men get to know you, your relationships can become more easygoing, natural and genuine. You will feel more confident and your male managers will feel more comfortable with providing useful feedback that will help you to improve. Work will become more rewarding, not to mention more fun.

Being part of a network also positions you to obtain information, potential assignments and sponsorships. Men often say that they don’t promote women or ask them to work on big projects simply because they don’t know them as well as they do their male colleagues. Make sure that your colleagues know all about you: there’s a tangible payoff in terms of rewards and compensation but, just as importantly, it builds trust.

Relationships built on trust are sturdy and can endure a blow or two. Trust provides flexibility because the men will give you the benefit of the doubt if your behaviour surprises them. That can be extraordinarily beneficial when you have to use behaviours that range significantly outside the narrow eye of the needle.

You will then be able to enlarge the eye of the needle because how you behave is just who you are, and who you are is someone they like. It may turn out that, with practice and focus, threading the needle isn’t that difficult after all.