Advancing Women Podcast

Fear of Failure

The narrative is so prevalent: women are afraid to fail. Women don’t take risks. We hear this all the time. Often as a part of the explanation of women’s lack of advancement. This episode addresses how gender bias impacts fear and how fear impacts women’s advancement. The discussion of FEAR is important because research shows that people just don’t perform as well in a culture fear.

With risk of course, is increased chance for failure and we all fear failure. Research shows that women have higher levels of fear of failure and take failure and negative feedback harder, in part, because failure has a more lasting negative impact on women. This episode helps explain the barriers and biases that impact how women’s mistakes are perceived and how this effects women’s fear of failure and willingness to take risks.

Too often explanations are oversimplified: women just don’t take risks, can’t take criticism, don’t have high self-efficacy, don’t have confidence – all explanations that don’t serve women and are really just the wolf in sheep’s clothing. Blame the women. Notice a pattern? Fix the women, fix the problem. So frustratingly resilient.

Women often feel the weight of our actions, and mistakes as having a negative impact on all women. Former US representative Clare Boothe Loose nailed it when she said “Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, 'She doesn't have what it takes'; They will say, 'Women don't have what it takes”.

This episode calls out the inequity’s women experience that create fear and provides the tools to transcend; the skillset, mindset, and toolset to embrace our fears in order to be the fierce, resilient warriors we are meant to be.

Fear itself does not have to be a problem. In fact, as Mark Twain famously said “Courage is not the lack of fear. It is acting in spite of it.” Action in the face of fear is badass and this episode will help you flip the script from a story of women being more afraid – to a story of resilience, grit and anti-fragility.

Queen Bee Syndrome

Is Queen Bee Syndrome losing its sting to the emerging “Persisterhood” Narrative?

With so much of the social media messaging focusing on women empowering women and women supporting women, how do we explain Queen Bee Syndrome – that phenomenon where high ranking women in positions of authority treat the women who work below them more critically than their male counterparts and even that they can oppose or hinder the advancement of other women.

This episode addresses this difficult issue and identifies the biases that contribute to it. What do lobsters in a boiling pot of water have to do with women’s advancement – find out in this episode which addresses how bias against women can foster conflict among women – and what we can do to interrupt that pattern that does not serve us.

We address patterns like distancing oneself from “other” women (disassociating), assimilating (to masculine gender stereotypical traits), destructive leadership behaviors (bullying, ridiculing, or harassing), and system justification (people defending and justifying these highly resilient negative stereotypes) which can result when organizations create a win-lose environment where tokenism and gender inequality are deeply entrenched in the culture.

This episode discusses the research that shows how the queen bee phenomenon can be a consequence of gender biased social and organizational structures and circumstances.

We challenge the narratives that perpetuate the image of women being difficult to work for or with or out of place in senior leadership roles. Narratives that preserve a gendered status quo that just does not work for women, and I will show how we can use the 4Ps advancement model to interrupt negative patterns.

Finally, we discuss what organizations need can do to reward the behaviors that create supportive environments that keep Queen Bee Syndrome at bay.

Maya Angelou famously said do your best until you know better than do better. That really sums up the purpose of the #advancingwomenpodcast. That more of us can KNOW…and that knowing will help us all DO better.

Learn more about the 4 Ps Advancement Model ™ @ www.advancingwomenpodcast.com

Email me to share ideas or feedback @ drdesimone@advancingwomenpodcast.com

Connect on Instagram @ https://www.instagram.com/advancingwomenpodcast/

The 4P's Advancement Model™

“You do not rise to the level of your goals, but you fall to the level of your systems.” (James Clear, Atomic Habits, 2018).

What are the habits, strategies, and systems you have in place to ensure you rise to your goals? This episode addresses actionable steps and processes to disrupt biases that create barriers to your advancement goals.

I am thrilled to have an amazing warrior guest this week to share their expertise and insight. Denette Suddeth is a Certified Executive Coach with expertise in career planning, change leadership, effective communication, emotional intelligence, leadership development, strategic planning, and team building. She brings a wealth of knowledge on how we can harness our emotional intelligence to serve in achieving our advancement goals.

In this episode we discuss the Neuroscience of the slow brain versus fast brain and hour our emotional intelligence skills can become the Super Skills we need to transcend and thrive.

This Advancing Women Podcast is where empathy meets pragmatism, and this episode pragmatically shows how we can confidently and strategically address workplace biases and barriers utilizing the 4 Ps Advancement Model ™ by evaluating the Problems, Patterns, Processes and Proficiencies to interrupt bias patterns in ways that serve rather than sabotage our advancement.

We also discuss how the TKD Process ™ (What you THINK, what you KNOW, and what you DO) can help ensure you have the right mindset, skillset, and toolset to not only transcend barriers and biases but also can serve as the catalyst to hone important warrior skills like grit, resiliency, and anti-fragility.

If you are fed up with being tone policed…if you have ever been told “calm down” you definitely want to tune in and learn how to take control of YOUR narrative to ensure you create purposeful perceptions that serve you in your advancement goals. “You have the ability to influence and impact your advancement” (Denette Suddeth – this episode!).

Learn more about the the 4 Ps Advancement Model ™ @ www.advancingwomenpodcast.com

Email me to share ideas or feedback @ drdesimone@advancingwomenpodcast.com

Connect on Instagram @ https://www.instagram.com/advancingwomenpodcast/

Learn more about today’s guest: Denette Suddeth @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/denettesuddeth/ 

Email: denette@suddethinc.com Website: Denette Suddeth | Corporate Coach

Second Generation Gender Bias

This episode focuses on Second Generation Gender Bias. Gender Bias is a heavy load for women wanting to advance to carry and transcend. Although things have improved over the past few decades’ women are still experiencing bias and discrimination that is often more difficult to see on the surface. The narrative surrounding leadership and what defines an ideal leader is deeply gender biased.

This episode addresses the most common barriers ambitious warrior women report experiencing as they navigate the professional pipeline to advancement.

Have you ever felt like you constantly must prove yourself, prove your competency and value repeatedly? Like your mistakes are judged more harshly than your male counterparts. Learn more about this Prove it Again Bias is this episode.

Do you sometimes feel like the criteria outlined to help you advance keeps shifting? No matter what hoops you jump through, it feels like the rules keep changing. Learn more about this Casuistic Bias.

If you have ever felt frustrated by the question “how do you balance family and work” when your male counterparts NEVER have to answer that question? This episode addresses the “motherhood penalty” and Maternal Wall Bias.

Is the stress of trying to balance being seen as both likeable AND competent something that frustrates you? Where if you behave in more stereotypically masculine ways, you feel like people don’t like you as much, but when you behave in more stereotypically feminine ways, people don’t see you as a leader. That disheartening feeling that you must choose between either being seen as a nice person who is there to support others or being seen as a “bitch”. This is the Tightrope Bias!

Finally, as warriors we know intuitively that together we rise and thrive, so why do we keep hearing about Queen Bee’s and other narratives that suggest women do not support other women? That is the Tug of War Bias.

Understanding these biases helps us see the reality of the problems we are encountering so we can create more meaningful and effective strategies for transcending those barriers and interrupting those patterns of bias.

It’s Not Your Fault but It Is Your Problem

This episode focuses on women’s experiences navigating advancement and the leadership pipeline. It tackles the barriers and beliefs that keep talented, ambitious women from advancing to positions of influence, power, pay, and prestige.

Why do highly qualified, high-performing, driven women, despite tirelessly implementing a host of advancement strategies, still often feel stuck? If you have followed all the advice, and still are not seeing the outcomes you desire and deserve, this episode is for you.

In this episode “It’s not your fault but it is your problem” we answer these questions covering several key topics including Gender Equity, Gender Norms, Stereotypes, Biases and Barriers and the False Dilemma Fallacy.

It is the anecdote to the steady diet of fix the women, fix the problem we here too often. You are neither broken, nor defective - you do not need to be fixed!

In this episode we balance empathy meets pragmatism. We need to understand and advocate against inequity, but we also need practical solutions to ensure we have the right mindset, skillset, and toolset to advance, thrive and transcend barriers.

Empathy – it is not your fault, Pragmatism – but it is your problem! This episode is about helping women transcend barriers and claim their rightful seat at the table.