Another Friday, another reason why every business leader SHOULD be a Feminist!

What is Feminism?

  1. You do not have to be a woman to be a Feminist
  2. Feminism is not about elevating women above men
  3. Feminism is a movement that is in favour of equality and inclusiveness
  4. If every organisation is run by a Feminist, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to change the current leadership – maybe just their thinking

Yes, it’s that time again. Friday has approached and here at Wellbeing with Cari, we are counting down our top 10 reasons why every business should banish the notion of competitiveness and an ‘every person for themselves’ attitude, and start working together, discovering one another’s strengths, and harnessing those strengths to make sustainable change within the organisation!

No.7 – Feminist Leaders are collaborative vs competitive

This idea that competitiveness is good for us? Well, I would like to throw the light of scorn upon that – for a start, why would we want our people to compete with each other within the organisation? – surely that’s completely counterproductive. While they are all trying to outdo each other, there could be some wider and more important issues solved from working together. Take sales, for example. If I compete against you, maybe I miss the chance to work with your strengths and mine, to get even more sales… Just a thought.

A study conducted in 2013 by Tracey Vaillancourt entitled ‘Do Human Females Use Indirect Aggression As An Intrasexual Competition Strategy?’ explores the ideas surrounding competition between women in the workplace, specifically the desire to undermine other women to receive recognition by their fellow employees. According to Vaillancourt, indirect aggression can refer to:

  1. Criticising a competitors’ appearance.
  2. Spreading rumours about a person’s sexual behaviour and social exclusion.
  3. Criticising a person’s professional and personal ability to achieve.

Basically, indirect aggression is the use of non-physical violence or cruelty to cause emotional pain to another individual.

My Critiques on this study:

My main issue with this study is the fact that it ONLY focuses on WOMENs bad behaviour – and frankly, it’s not the women I’m concerned about!

Women will do what they must to survive in an unfair arena – made unfair by, predominantly, white males.

This study is another example of how women are expected to be angelic perfection, while men who criticise women’s appearance, get off the hook – and don’t even seem to get a mention in this highly weighted study.

Before we start to criticise women at work we should be looking at the emotional environment in which we all have to work – and until we create less threat and more acceptance there will, without doubt be competitiveness.

Let’s take the articles premise – say women become less aggressive and more collaborative – does this change the emotional environment, or only appease it? EVERYONE needs to be less aggressive and more collaborative, and yet, frequently when women are strong they are called ‘aggressive’ and when men are strong they are called ‘assertive’.

The three actions the quote identifies may be rife, but I have seen men use the same techniques equally to harm women at work, therefore, this cannot be an issue that only effects WOMEN in the workplace!

Why every Feminist leader SHOULD value collaboration over competitiveness:

If you are a Feminist you will see that true respect of diversity comes with the openminded attitude to collaboration. Together we are stronger. There is enough for us all, and if we stop trying to take all the jam and hide it in our pockets, then there could be enough for everyone and we don’t end up with sticky fingers… I think I may have taken that metaphor too far!!

Being collaborative means thinking more in terms of team work than in terms of hierarchy. The purpose of an organisational structure should be to identify who the leadership need to be supporting – an inverted triangle of customer service hierarchy – just like the ones we studied back in the 1990’s when we used to say ‘if you are not serving a customer, you should be serving someone who is…” where did that notion go, I wonder?

It is the job of the employer to ensure that all of the individuals in this inverted triangle are supported and appreciated within everything they do for the business.

Does your organisation require a change in leadership style to better support employees?

That concludes No.7 of the reasons why every leader SHOULD be a Feminist… our next blog in the series will be published on the 19/03/21!