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

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 value vulnerability in their team, and discourage those who display fragility in the face of mistakes. 

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 

Number six in the series, Why Every Business Leader Should Be a Feminist, highlights why Feminist leaders should value vulnerability over fragility. 

What is vulnerability and how is it different to fragility?

This is my definition of vulnerability and fragility in the face of mistakes, vulnerability is accepting that you have made a mistake and choosing to learn from it, this is the desired outcome for an employee. While fragility refers to an individual reacting negatively or defensively to criticism in their work, instead of listening and learning from it, individuals who display fragility diminish the capabilities of change and improvement in the organisation. 

Fragility is a feeling that drives our reactions – it is too simplistic to say that it is a choice we make to be a pain in the ass – no one means to do that – but instead it requires us to recognise that something may be pressing our buttons. I want to move away from the ‘self help’ guru thing that say ‘ you are in control of everything you do and if you don’t do the clever things I say (which by the way I am personally incapable of, but very good at telling everyone) then you are failing to improve!!!’ We need a kinder touch here. Because the thing about fragility, is that we all have it, and that we usually don’t notice. The best example is racism. If I say ‘ that was racist’ to someone, they are likely to become really offended ‘how DARE you call me racist’ as if calling it out is worse that racism itself. So accepting that we have fragility, is step one – we all have it, not only the bad people!!!I’m not into apologising either. I think apologies are good when we offend, but what is better is gratitude, because apologising makes you feel bad about yourself, whereas, if someone calls you out, and you say, ‘wow, thanks for being so brave as to telling me that thing, and thank you for the opportunity for to me learn something from it’, it becomes good for everyone.

We have to be courageous enough to relinquish some of our power and control, we have to admit when we are wrong, don’t understand or need help. And the people who find that the hardest are the ones who need to do this the most are leaders. We need to realise that to say ‘help, I don’t understand your point of view’ is a brave thing to do, that only a very strong person is capable of carrying off. 

The old patriarchal organisations do not embrace vulnerability – in these you must put on a brave face – and we have researched this and can see that brave face syndrome, a phrase we coined about 18 years ago, is rife in large organisations – people cannot admit their frailties. 

What is Brave Face Syndrome?

For example, when someone feels under the weather at work, if they say “I feel a bit…meh!” what happens? You know what happens….Everyone starts asking “Why?”

And so the questions begin, and the fact is, we really don’t know the answer to them, or… we know, in a way but we just can’t explain. This is because the Limbic system of our brain, the home of our emotions, has no capacity for language. This means that the questions are impossible to answer, so we rationalise.

We create a reason that makes sense – when we can’t find a sensible reason.

When we first started measuring emotional and cognitive responses to wellbeing there was a common pattern in people who were lower in wellbeing. And it was this: people saw the organisation as having everything in place, they scored their employers as having the right policies and procedures on the whole – and where they were not fully in-line with what they believed they should have, there was not such a big gap between what we would have hoped for and reality.

Our scores are clearly showing that 100’s of people are putting on a brave face at work, are not dealing with the issues that are causing them harm while they are battling against the odds. 

Presenteeism goes far beyond simply being there when you are unfit; it has become modus operandi for many people. It has become an accepted norm that you will go to work feeling unsupported and miserable, but put on your sunny smile and “kick on”.

Well, there is a time and a place for taking a positive attitude, and years of being told “don’t be negative” has clearly taken its toll, with people terrified of being honest about how they feel.

And yet, pretending to be positive when you are dying inside is not, actually, being positive. 

Instead of admitting vulnerability we are seeing a rise of what Robin Di Angelo calls ‘White Fragility’, this is something any of us who are white in a white privileged society that essentially is the world, will experience. Our reactivity is a give away. When I get activated about being called privileged, or when I think that it is unfair to criticise me because I am white – that’s fragility. The more fragile, the more reactive and aggressive we can become. 

The reverse of this is acceptance of discomfort (it is nothing compared to the oppression suffered by others in society), preparedness to listen and accept when we are pulled up about things we have said (albeit without deliberate malice). 

We need to accept that the world has been crafted to whitewash history, and so we need to listen to the truths about history  and accept that we may be offending. Even if this is not deliberate, offense is offense, and rather feeling fragile and cross to have been called out – it is our role to accept, to be vulnerable and wrong, to learn, and to ask for help in building a better understanding, rather than taking the view that we know best – that is a patriarchal view that needs to go: white males can solve the problem of all others without asking others what problems they want solved. And this is the model of disempowerment which maintains the patriarchy. 

That concludes No.6 of the reasons why every leader SHOULD be a Feminist… our next blog in the series will be published on the 26/03/21!