the 'girl boss' - feminist icon or just another stereotype(asks a professional coach for expat women)?

Are you brilliant in the background – can it be enough?

Yes - I’m genuinely asking … 

I’m genuinely asking because it’s something I often ponder.

As a professional coach for expat women I also know that it's something that other women ponder.

As a woman in the lower or middle-management standings of the corporate pecking order you may have heard these things about yourself or a woman colleague …

• She’s a quiet achiever

• She just gets on with things

• She is a real team player

• She’s technically very capable

But ….

She doesn’t have that leader energy … she’s not influential

As a gold-plated ‘quiet achiever’ myself I’m here to say sometimes it’s just fine to be brilliant in the background …

and other times it’s … frustrating as hell.

The research tells us that women experience the ‘double-whammy’ effect – in addition to gender discrimination, many women experience the bias of the extrovert ideal of women in leadership.

The system values visibility over depth.

But what if women leaders didn’t have to model themselves on the ‘girl boss’.

What might that look like?

 In practice it might be that we:

• Celebrate women who are (and choose to be) brilliant in the background

• Create career development programs and opportunities that challenge ideas around extroversion

• Coach women to get beyond the imposter syndrome that is the close friend of introversion.

• Consider alternative leadership models for women – models that encourage and reward women who exhibit relational intelligence, calm confidence, emotional resilience and strategic depth.

• Create and recruit for roles with an alternative perspective – one which looks for the above capabilities.

As someone who wants to see women build careers and lives that they love I’m here for all professional women but …

I have a special soft spot for women who are brilliant in the background.

If that’s you I’d love to chat.