It’s no secret that women face an array of biases as they navigate the complexities of work. And for decades, the idea of the glass ceiling points to the specific challenge women experience in reaching top executive roles.
New research indicates the barrier issue begins much earlier. The 2023 Lean In/McKinsey Women in the Workplace study cites the “broken rung,” proposing that women are being held back at earlier career stages than previously thought. The study reports that fewer women are promoted to the manager level, resulting in even fewer women candidates available to promote to director level, and so on, all the way up the corporate ladder.
As we work to make systemic changes that will bring more equity to the workplace, one author is stepping in with guidance for what women can do to help themselves in the meantime.
Ellen Connelly Taaffe brings a new angle to this conversation, with ideas that are immediately actionable, because she highlights barriers that come from within. Taaffe’s new book The Mirrored Door: Break Through the Hidden Barrier That Locks Successful Women in Place is a manual for women to navigate the challenges that might come from our own internal biases.
“The mirrored door is where we face opportunity and hesitate, deeming ourselves not ready or not worthy,” says Taaffe, a successful corporate executive who designed her next chapter as a board director and professorship with the prestigious Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, where she is founding director of its Women in Leadership program.
“I realized that women might reflect on their careers and find themselves lacking, when that definitely is not the reality,” she said. “Many women are more qualified than people who are being promoted around them, but in some cases they are holding themselves back.”
Navigate the Perils of Success
In The Mirrored Door, Taaffe describes what she calls the five perils of success:
- Preparing to perfection
- Eagerly pleasing
- Fitting the mold
- Working pedal to the metal
- Performing patiently
Taaffe illustrates these pitfalls in depth, and describes how they might have served aspiring leaders earlier in their careers, which is why some women cling to limiting behaviors as they move up. But eventually these tendencies evolve into self-inflicted barriers that hold them back from growing into leadership positions that require different skills and new approaches.
Feedback is a Power Skill
One of the key factors for success is giving and receiving feedback.
“Feedback is a power skill,” says Taaffe. Indeed, the ability to give and receive feedback effectively is a key differentiator in leadership. Although it’s daunting to ask for it and challenging to deliver, Taaffe recommends you start with understanding where you are to more effectively chart the course for where you want to go.
Taaffe suggests people first ask for feedback from “loving critics,” those who are close enough to understand your work style and care enough to give unfiltered feedback. These are people who can help you understand both superpowers and blind spots that can form the basis of your action plan. From there, Taaffe suggests you look for ways to share your leadership goals with your manager and other leaders, to practice articulating your ambition and also to get advice about how to reach the next level.
These conversations need to happen consistently, and aspiring leaders should practice delving deeper into initial feedback. Two intriguing questions Taaffe recommends is “what do you hope I will do?” and “what do you fear I will do?’ Power questions like these can set the scene for deeper discussions about professional goals.
“Women get vaguer, and more subjective feedback than men,” said Taaffe. Women need to understand this tendency, and take it upon themselves to further investigate how to get clarification and decide which feedback deserves further action.
This book is an excellent guide for women who want to navigate this rocky path with grace and purpose. It includes chapter takeaways for the skimmers, journal prompts to dig deeper and manager considerations for those who coach aspiring women to success.
Research shows that women are more ambitious than ever. By giving thoughtful consideration to how we might be standing in the way of our own success, and creating workable strategies to break through those barriers, we’ll accelerate the substantial change that will make the workplace more productive for everyone.
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