The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 530: Katty Kay - How Power Impacts Our Careers, Friends, & Marriages (The Power Code)

Episode Date: June 11, 2023

Text Hawk to 66866 to become part of "Mindful Monday." Join 10's of thousands of your fellow learning leaders and receive a carefully curated email from me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right... Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12   https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12 Katty Kay is a US correspondent for the BBC and a regular contributor on MSNBC. Katty grew up in the Middle East, where her father was a British diplomat. She studied French and Italian at Oxford University and worked as a foreign correspondent in Africa and Japan before moving to The US in 1996. Katty is the best-selling author of many books. Her latest is called "The Power Code." Notes:  The definition of power – The ability to exercise one's will, influence others, and effect change. The ability to exercise our will—More Joy. Influencing (not controlling) others—Less Ego. Effecting change—Maximum Impact. Redefining Power - In the past, it seems to be about dominance. About something you hold over something (people, or resources). Instead, we want it to be used to effect positive change. Let's use power for good. Promoting on promise versus promoting on performance. The research states that more men are promoted on promise than women. And women are mostly promoted based on performance. As leaders, let's think about promise versus performance. As Frank Slootman said in a previous conversation, let's hire people "Ahead of their curve. Most women today don't want power. The path to getting it, as it exists today, involves too many sacrifices, and power itself is unappealing, full of egos and competition. Women have all the skills, but we'd rather opt out. Women and men don't define power in the same way. Men think of power as a finite commodity, part of a hierarchical, zero-sum game that involves having power over people. Women aren't competitive about power, and we focus more on the end result, the change we can affect with power. It's the difference between power over and power to. Does power corrupt? Not in the hands of women.  Researchers have found that women are the exception to the rule that powerful people are less empathetic–women tend to maintain their connection to others, to a ground-level reality, as we rise through the ranks–a huge leadership advantage. Power fuels action. Neuroscientists are discovering the remarkable things power does to our brains. It can liberate its possessors, across their lives, and even create an ability to act more authentically. That offers big rewards for women and needs to become a selling point. Women will never get power outside the home until our marriages look less like the 1950s. Our marriages aren't keeping up with society or our careers. A woman with a job does more housework than a man who doesn't work. In couples where the wife earns more than the husband, they lie about it on the US census form. Men are stuck in a box they don't want to be in.  They are pushed to play the outdated role of primary breadwinner, which is why the number of stay-at-home dads has barely grown in a quarter of a century. But increasingly men realize the zero-sum power formula isn't working for them either. A more collaborative, more humane approach to power would benefit everyone. 00:38 - How Do You Define Power? 03:18 - Challenges with Research on Gender 05:46 - Using Power for Good 08:41 - Power reveals your Character 10:22 - Why Wouldn't Someone Want Power? 13:37 - Is Power Shifting for Good? 15:31 - How Does Power Need to Change? 19:21 - Suggestions for Relationships at Home 20:42 - The Options to be a "Stay At Home" 30:58 - Characteristics of Katty's Career 33:46 - Can Fame Impact a Marriage? 35:13 - Society's Expectations for Mom & Dads 39:05 - Confidence & Imposter Syndrome 42:45 - The Common Characteristic of Every Leader 44:46 - The Impact of Female College Graduates 46:59 - Can Having Children Impact Your Career as a Mother? 49:30 - Advice for a Male CEO 52:26 - Life Advice for All  

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go to storyworth.com slash leader. You'll get $10 off your first purchase. That's storyworth.com slash leader. Welcome to The Learning Leaders Show, presented by Insight Global. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text Hawk to 66866 to become part of Mindful. Monday. You, along with tens of thousands of other learning leaders from all over the world,

will receive a carefully curated email for me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right. You'll also receive details about how my book, The Pursuit of Excellence, will help you become a more effective leader. Text Hawk to 66866. Now on tonight's featured leader, the great Caddy Kay is a U.S. correspondent for the BBC and a regular contributor. on MSNBC. Caddy grew up in the Middle East where her father was a British diplomat. She studied French and Italian at Oxford University and worked as a foreign correspondent in Africa and Japan before settling in the United States in 1996. Caddy is also the best-selling author of many books. Her latest is called The Power Code. During this conversation we discuss redefining power

and how we as leaders can use it for good. And then the difference between how men and women view power fast in any talk. Then how her fame has impacted her marriage. I appreciate her getting candid here. And then we discuss how to become a more confident leader, both at home and at work. Ladies and gentlemen, this one is so good. It's the great Caddy Kay. Katty, it's great to have you here on the Learning Leader Show.

Years in the Making. Welcome. Ryan, I'm so glad we finally got to do this. Me too. Okay, so I want to jump right in because you have an amazing story where to get to some of it, but your most recent work is focused on power. And I think before we get too deep into it, it's useful to properly define it. So how would you define power?

I think that's a really good question. And it is where we wanted to start because I think in order to redefine power, it's probably worth defining it. And so we went back through history and looked at all the kind of traditional views of power. Unsurprisingly, they are kind of interpretations of power that tend to have been drawn up by men and particularly by white men in the West. And power has tended to be defined as the ability to have power over people or power over resources or power over territory. But it's been seen very much as a hierarchical concept. You had the power to make other people do things that they perhaps didn't want to do.

But it was this relationship of dominance. But as we got into talking to academics, and for this book, we interviewed dozens of people that study power, of psychologists, of neuroscientists, people that are looking at power in your brain, people are looking at power of your psychology. but the people who are really sort of examining what power is and as a concept, as a social power, because there's also kind of elemental power in the terms of, you know, lights and energy, but we were really interested in social power. There are people that are starting to examine power

in a different way and look at how power could be something other than just a relationship of dominance. And what we found was that there tends to be a difference in the way that men and women, interpret power. The men tend to interpret power as this concept of power over, and women tend to interpret power as power to. In other words, as power to affect change. So they see more power more as a tool. What can I do with power to impact the community that I live in, to impact the organization that I work for, to impact my team? And it sounds subtle. It sounds subtle.

and nuanced, and maybe it is, but I also think it's quite profound, that if we could reimagine power as power too, as seeing power as a tool to bring about change, rather than just as power over things, I think suddenly power becomes a very different construct and perhaps becomes something that is more appealing to women. The male-female element of this, the men and women part of it, sometimes I hesitate to lump all men together and all women together. It's why I say tend to. Tend to.

Okay. So I'm curious about that element of the research that you found that a group, whether it's men or women, kind of view it in this way and they view it that way. What's the research behind that shared all of the details on how it's viewed based on gender? This idea of power too comes from a woman called Professor. Laura Cray of Berkeley who has spent a lot of time and her team who have spent a lot of time doing social science. The neuroscience of power is kind of in its infancy. People are starting to look at it, but there's been quite a lot of social science research in, and they have done

most of the work on how women tend to affect power and tend to see power. And it's really a question of asking, asking different groups of people, men and women, the right kinds of questions that get not just to how they would like people to understand that they see power, but how they actually understand power. So you try and take out some of the biases in, I don't want to be seen as a jerk and say, I just want power over, you know, everybody in the planet. So you try and kind of exclude for some of that. And it's a question of how you ask the questions and the way you ask the right questions. And she and actually a postdoc student of hers called Sonia Mishra, who's a refugee from Wall Street, have done quite a lot of the research on how men and women understand power differently.

And then when we went back to people, one of the foremost thinkers on this is a guy called David Winter, who's a professor emeritus at Michigan, who very much had kind of come up with a view of the power. I have power over this AirPod case because I can make it move from A to B. And then you take that over people. I have power over you, Ryan, if I turn off this Zoom call and we're no longer having this conversation, that is a form of power. So he very much had a power over construct. And we went back to him and asked him about this power too. And he said, yes, there is a kind of evolution in the way that we think of power. And actually, if you look at corporations and organizations,

there needs to be a better way of understanding power. That this power over idea is not necessarily the most effective for organizations. When I work with leaders, especially with the big title leaders, one of the things I say is you've accumulated power. Let's focus on using that power for good. Because some of them do you do the fake humility thing. Oh, no, no, I'm just another person. I'm just another. Well, yes, you are and being humble is good.

But you are in a position of power. Let's use it for good. Let's use it to impact our organization and people in a great way. as opposed to when some would say power corrupts or power causes goes to your head or causing you to make poor decisions or become selfish or egocentric, whatever may be. I like that kind of reframe of let's use it for good. Yeah, I mean, I love that you brought up that phrase. I don't know if you know where it comes from, power corrupts.

It's an English writer and politician from the late 1800s Lord John Acton, who came up with the phrase, power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupt absolutely and then he followed it up with great men are nearly always bad men. He didn't address what power would do in the hands of women because I guess it wasn't particularly relevant in 1887.

But actually, this idea of power, power as a tool, power as something that drives action. And I'll get to the kind of difference between men and female leaders in a second, but some of the neuroscience we looked at suggests exactly that that people who have power are more likely literally to have more action going on in their behavioral activation systems of their brains, the left frontal cortex,

than people who don't have power. So if you don't have power, it tends to make you more tentative and less likely to act, whereas power in a way inspires you to action. And according to one the academics we spoke to, it also inspires you to be more yourself. Therefore, power in the, so it really matters, this why of power, the purpose of power really matters, because power in the hands of somebody with bad intentions will, that person having power will accelerate their actions. Power in the hands of somebody conversely with good intentions, power will accelerate their good intentions. So I think it's really useful, this framing of power, kind of take some of the emotion out of power. It's a tool and an accelerant to action.

When somebody says, talks about money in a way, it's more revealing than anything else. When you get power, it reveals your character. It's more revealing of who you are. Some say, like I said, the same happens, money, and then you kind of see the genuine character of a person. I think that's a good way of describe. I mean, that's what Jennifer Jordan, who's an academic in Geneva, suggested to us, that power almost in a way allows you to be more authentic and free. Yeah. But it allows you to be more of yourself.

So in some ways, I think that's quite an appealing prospect to people who may feel hesitant about power, but who think of themselves as having good intentions. And if you combine that concept of power with an ability still to retain your empathy, and your compassion for those below you, which some of the research suggests women are more able to do as they get power than men, then actually power in the hands of women can be a very powerful thing. And I think one of the most inspiring women leaders we spoke to

is actually a female politician in Senegal. I spent some time in Senegal a couple of years ago. And I asked her, what did having power as now a member of the National Assembly in Senegal mean to her? And she said, if I have power, I can get an electric light bulb into a maternity clinic so the midwife can deliver a baby with a little bit of light. Or I can get private bathrooms into school so that girls can go to school while they're menstruating rather than having to stay home. And I just thought that is power as a tool. That is a power as a tool to affect change to make the world a better place.

Using it for good. I love those examples that you wrote about. the dynamics between who wants power and who doesn't. When I think of this, I'm a guy, right? I've been in some, I think, powerful positions at time, played quarterback in sports, and that's a powerful position, and then it was a leader in corporate America for a while. I like it. I want it.

I want to use it as a tool for good, right, to serve and to help other people, but I do yearn for that. But maybe that's not the case for everyone. Why would somebody not want that? What does your research say about that? that? I think this is really where this book came from. The idea of this book came from research that Claire Shipman, my co-author and I, came across a few years ago, and it was done by an associate professor at Harvard called Alison Wood Brooks. She'd long looked at the relationship

between women and power, and she had assumed that women didn't, weren't in positions of power in the same numbers of men were in positions of power because of all the hurdles that we all know about, all of the biases, all of the things that make it difficult for women to have power in work organizations. And then she started looking at what she called the demand side of power. Was it actually something else? Was it not that those biases and hurdles aren't relevant, but was it actually something about women's relationship with power? And she did nine different versions of the same study looking at what the difference between women and men's life goals compared to their power-related goal. So power-related goal is, I'd like to be CEO or quarterback, or I'd like to

have a bigger team. And a life goal might be, I want to have more time with my community, or I'd like to have more time with my kids, or to care for my parents, or to run a marathon. And she found that consistently, over the course of nine different versions of the same study, and thousands of different people replying to the study, different ages, different seniority, different education levels, women consistently had more life-related goals and fewer power-related goals, and men had more power-related goals and fewer life-related goals. And her conclusion from that was that women look at power and think the root to it is very difficult and involves too many compromises of their life-related goals,

and that actually power itself, when they look at the people that have it, just doesn't look very appealing. So that kind of was where we started this book from. Why is it that women don't really want power? And our conclusion over the course of all of the interviews and the work and the research we did was that you don't need to change women. You need to change power itself. And that if we could have a different understanding of power, who gets it, the route to getting it, who wields it, how it's wielded, then actually it becomes a very appealing prospect to a lot of power. who gets it, the route to getting it, who wields it, how it's wielded,

then actually it becomes a very appealing prospect to a lot of women who are already doing the things they need to do to wield it effectively. I love it. I'm going to dig in. When was that research done? The nine studies? So Allison was doing her research. The original reporting on that came out about five years ago. Okay, so it's still recent. I was going to ask, I was wondering if you are seeing, is this changing? It feels to me like it is, but maybe I'm off. I don't know.

Is it changing? I think you're right. I think things are changing. And I think that's why we are basically quite optimistic and why we think this is exactly the moment for this conversation. Because we've had numerous big shakeups to society over the last few years. We've had the Black Lives Matter movement. We've had Me Too.

we've had COVID, all of which in their own way have shaken up workplaces, shaken up family dynamics, shaken up our understanding of equity. And I think this is a moment where there is a lot to play for, where things are quite in flux. And it's a great moment to kind of reimagine because it's happening anyway. People are reimagining. I mean, you know, the Me Too movement has profoundly changed the way that women are talked about and addressed and treated at work.

Has it eradicated all the problems? No. But it's definitely changed things. The Black Lives Matter movement has definitely changed things in the way we view race and equity and distribution of power. COVID has changed things because we are now realizing that actually some of those things that we thought were essential going to an office from nine in the morning until six in the evening every day, are actually no longer seen as essential. And if they're not essential, what else is not essential in the way we work? I'm fascinated by how all of this is evolving quickly. I am curious, though, you said we don't need to change women.

We need to change power. What are some of the changes we need to make to power and the ways in which we go about acquiring it? So I think some of it is, some of it is for women to look at, maybe think about their power goals for a start. Are there and think about, and literally noticing, which might sound trite, but neuroscientists actually say that noticing can be a very effective tool. Noticing how different people wheel power differently, that there doesn't have to be one size fits all, that it doesn't actually always have to be a question of dominance and hierarchy. Then perhaps looking at your own power goals and thinking what? you can, imagining what you could do if you had power as opposed to seeing it as how you could control other people. But what are the, what are the literally the things in your team, in your

organization, in your company that you could change that would make that company a better place or make it more effective or make your team more effective? Then there are, you know, a lot of the bias issues that have evolved over time in workplaces. I think we can call out now in a way we couldn't do before. If you're in a meeting and somebody talks over a woman, call it out in real time. If code words are used, you know, oh, she's just too emotional. She's such a Debbie Downer. She's such a prima donna. It's micro things that actually could lead to macro changes. But it's also celebrating the impact of women in terms of performance. One of the things we found, I think, that could have a real impact.

is that women tend to be promoted on the basis of their performance. Men are often promoted on the basis of promise. Now, promise is quite a subjective quality that actually often leads to discrimination against women in terms of promotion. He has promise because he has leadership essential, which is he has charisma, ambition, assertiveness. These tend to be characteristics.

that favor men much more than women. If you as an organization are promoting women on the basis of performance, they have to have gone through all of these hurdles and a checklist of achievements before they can be promoted, whereas a guy could be promoted just on the principle that he will one day be able to be promoted and that he shows promise and leadership and charisma and all of these things. So I think it's really looking at what is happening in organizations that is both blocking women's path to,

but is reinforcing an old view of power that is not necessarily the most effective. I mean, if we have studies that show this, women pretty much consistently overperform compared to their ranking in an organisation. So when you just look at performance, women do well. They usually do what better than men. if you look at their promise because of the subjective nature of that metric, they do less well. So wouldn't most companies want more performance? I mean, what company wouldn't want people in positions of power that are performing well?

And I think it's looking at sort of organizational issues, looking at how women feel about power and can change their relationship with power. And then the area of the book that we really hadn't expected to get into was relationships. and marriages and relationships specifically between men and women and how that needs to change in order for women to have more power. What needs to change? When you look at where women are today, it's socially acceptable for women to work full-time, part-time, not at all. All of that's fine.

You, Ryan, really pretty much only have one option. You have to be the primary breadwinner. And that's what's socially acceptable. And that really is not changing. The number of stay-at-home dads in America has barely budged in 30 years. It's still sort of not socially acceptable for the woman to be the primary breadwinner in a couple. And that, all of that, the role that men are expected to play, and therefore the role that women are expected to play,

makes it increasingly hard for women to have power. I mean, women are very good at many things, we have not yet figured out how to put 36 hours into a 24-hour day. And so if we are still doing the majority of the housework, the majority of the planning of birthday parties, the majority of the school liaison, it just gives us less time and energy for pursuing other pursuits outside the family that might lead us to positions of power. Yeah, I don't know if I should even say this, but I feel a deep sense of self-worth and being a big time provider for my family. My wife does work full-time. She has two full-time jobs at work,

which she's a leader of leaders at a tech company and does an amazing job and promoted multiple times, right, is just awesome, right? I've met her bosses and things like that. It's great. But then the second full-time job, which takes even more time and is, I think, a lot harder is being a wife and a mom. And to me, I honestly don't know how she does it. I think a lot of people say that to her, too. I'm amazed every day. We're recording this around Mother's Day too. And that blows my mind. But honestly,

Katie, I don't know. I'll be curious if you talk to guys about this. I would really struggle. And I think we would be okay living just on the amount of money that she makes. She does really well. But I don't, I would not feel good. I would not feel like I'm providing. I would not feel like I am doing my job.

I don't think I'd feel like a man. Honestly, and I don't know if that's the wrong thing to say. but I would not do well in an environment like that. I know myself well enough. And I think there's probably a lot of guys out there who are like me. Oh, yeah. You're not by any means exceptional. I mean, this is, I think this is.

And I mean, the reason we kind of got into it was not the first time I've been told that. You're fabulous. You're fabulous, but basically your average. Thank you. So one of the fascinating pieces of research we came across that I think, It highlights all of this. A third of American women now do earn more than their husbands. Every year it's increasing.

We're edging up towards 50%. In couples where the wife earns more than the husband, they lie about it on the US census form. Wow. I mean, isn't that, what does that? It's not, they will, they are so keen, and this is both the husband and the wife. They inflate his salary and they defraight his salary,

and they deflate her salaries to make it look like he is earning more. They are so keen to protect the kind of traditional construct of a marriage that they will lie on a US government form. I just think that's stunning. When you think of where we are, you know, in 2023 and how much progress we've made in terms of gender equity, women earning more than their husband is still a taboo. and it's just something that everybody feels uncomfortable with.

And I think, and I kind of highlight this because until we change that concept, I think, and until we make, you know, caregiving of children, caregiving of parents, household chores, something that we all value a lot more, women will do the brunt of it. A man who doesn't have a job in America does less housework. than a woman who has a full-time job. In fact, a man who doesn't have a job does less housework than a man who does have a job. There is something about not having a job

that is so threatening to a man's ego that they can't pick up a vacuum cleaner. So I think that we need, that is the dynamic that needs to change. And I brought up the kind of all of the social options for men, because in a way, men are sort of in a box that women are not in. We have a lot more socially acceptable options.

men have much fewer socially acceptable options. And I think the downside for men is that they are missing out on what is one of the kind of incredibly rich experience of life, which is equal share of the caring duties. There is something about the kind of tedium of organizing birthday parties and doctors' appointments and dentist's appointments that actually gives you a richness in a relationship that you don't get if you're not as involved in it. And I think as we look at power in organizations, We do have to kind of change that in relationships, not just for women, but I think for men too. I think some of that is changing.

I've spoken with my daughter's teachers, and they say the amount of dads who show up at normal everyday things at school, doctor's appointments, has gone up over the course of years. I feel like there's more involvement in taking care of giving baths and reading the books before. bed and certainly outside playing. I feel like that's gone up when it comes to dads. I mean, this is just my thinking and talking to random people. But the thing that I feel almost is in our DNA. And I'm not trying to speak for everybody, but I guess I am, is the part that about being a provider. I just don't know if I see that changing. I just feel like that is kind of like we're born with that. Not everybody, right? Generally, for the most, most part, We're born with that and feel a sense of like I'm not fulfilled if I'm not.

I don't know if you have to make more money, but I do think you need to be a provider of some sort as a guy in our head. It just doesn't compute well if we aren't fulfilling that role in some sense. I think that's, I think you're really right. And I think the important thing you said is that you don't have to earn more. Yeah. But it can be equal. But for it to be equal, the distribution of care at home has to be equal to.

And you're right that dads are doing a lot more. And actually, COVID has been kind of one, in a way, has been wonderful because I think dad's had to do more and they found a certain satisfaction in doing more. But are they doing half? And are they doing half of the planning? That's, I think, where there's this thing called cognitive labor room with, as a wonderful woman, Alison Daminger, who's really looked at Harvard, who has really looked at how much more planning women do in family. So it'll be the planning of the birthday party, the planning of finding

the child care. That burden still, I'm on a, my daughter is about to graduate from high school, my youngest daughter. I'm on a WhatsApp group with all of the, organizing the gifts for the teachers at the end of the year and the, and the graduation ceremony. I'm, scrolling through this WhatsApp group on my phone, there's Alison, there's Shona, there's Clara, there's Debbie, there's Jane. There is not a single man on this WhatsApp group. I mean, not a single one. And so actually, I then eventually I said to my husband, Tom, you have to get involved in this WhatsApp group, if only to show that a man can organize something as simple as the gift at the end of the time. And I think it's, Alison Damager said,

what was wonderful about this, she did all these studies around this. And she said, what would be great was that sometimes the men would say, I'm just not as good at it as she is. And she would say, yeah, but you are literally a project planning manager at work, but you cannot plan a birthday party. And so I think, and I think it's that it's not just, this is not just a kind of gripe about, I wish men would do more of this shit,

although it is sort of that. It's also that if we, imagine if we as a society valued all of that shit. Yeah. Imagine if not just in work, But who is it in your office organization who plans the leaving party for Bob, who plans the birthday parties, who does the summer intern onboarding, who finds the new software for the company? All of those non-promotable tasks, who does them? It tends to be women who does them. We have the data on this. Women do much more than men do. And they are the same sorts of caring activities that make society work better. If they were valued, men might start. start doing more of them and women could then do less of them and do more of the other stuff.

It reminds me of a conversation I had with my wife years ago. We both grew up in corporate America. That's where we met, in fact. And oftentimes there's the boss who is the male says, hey, you know, I have bad handwriting. Can you? And usually points to a woman, will you get up and write the notes for this meeting that we're having so that we all can read it? Because I'm sure you have better handwriting than me.

And I would tell her, I'd never ever do that job. That's not your job. She does have great handwriting. but that's not your job. Your job is to be a leader and a speaker in that meeting, not the one who's just taking the notes of everybody else. And I found often fell to a woman who had good handwriting and to the detriment of her. And that's something I say, there's these little things, these little things every day that kind of just changes the level at which you're at, that which people view you at, that, no, you're a leader. You have a lot to add to this

meeting. But I think it's important for us to think about all those, because the guy doesn't mean anything bad like he's just saying right i you have good handwriting i don't have bad handwriting like just i don't think he's thinking that but it just it kind of puts people in their place and those little things add up over time it's good for us as guys to think about that and as women to say like no i'm not doing that job like i'm not in a bad way but just don't volunteer could you do it you know could you do it today i've got cramp in my hand you know it's there's an easy way of saying like when somebody comes at the end of a zoom meeting says catty will you organize the follow-up call saying, actually, I'm slammed today, Ryan, could you do it?

I think there's a way of batting some of this back. But I think it's also there's something more profound, which is getting companies and couples in the family context to recognize that these things are important. But a company doesn't run unless somebody takes the notes, that it doesn't run unless somebody organizes the farewell party for the CMO who's leaving, that it doesn't run unless somebody checks that these summer interns

are actually having a productive time. So it's a two-part process. It's women being able to say no to some of these things, both at home and at work. Which is hard. Which is hard. Yeah. Which is hard. And we have lots of ways you can do that.

But it's also companies recognizing the value of all of this emotional and cognitive labor. Exactly. I'm curious, Katty, about your career, right? You mentioned wife, mom, right? Similar, you're doing all this stuff. And at the same time, you've built. and you're in the middle of an amazing career, well known on TV, just doing fantastic work.

And I think you're a powerful person. How have you managed to build such an amazing career? What have you learned from studying your own career that could maybe be helpful for others? I think I'm very, it's paradoxically, it becomes easier the more powerful you get. It becomes easier to say no. to the things that you don't want to do. That is this kind of liberating thing about power is that

either whether it's something you don't want to do literally like, I don't want to do that meeting, I don't want to do that trip, I do want to do this project, I do want to interview this person, I do want to do this show. You have more choices when you have power to say no to things as well as to say yes to things. And it also, I think, liberates you to act on your best instincts that if I'm in a situation where something is being proposed that doesn't accord with my instincts or values or my gut, I will say no to it

now. Or if somebody's behaving in a way that I don't like, I can say no to it. So I've seen that, in that respect, I've seen the benefits of having power in my own life. But how have I done it? Oh, God, you muddle through. I was having dinner last night with a friend of mine who has three children, the oldest of whom is eight,

and then two under that, and she has a full-time job, and her husband has a full-time job, and their o'-peer has just quit and is leaving on Friday and I was thinking, oh my God, you know, I just, I so remember being there. My children are older now and life is easier, but you struggle through it and you get there. I think you spend as much as you can on extra help when you need it most when the children are young. I am very disciplined about not taking on jobs that I think will overwhelm me in terms of time. I I've become, I've also recognized, which I think I didn't earlier in my career, that I'm incredibly

efficient. And so I can get a full-time job done in about 70% of the time. I reckon most people can if they're efficient. And so that liberates me. I don't do things in the evenings. I say no to evening events. I say no to travel that I don't want to do and always have done. I've been, I've been pretty clear about, through the course of my career, about not putting myself in a situation, that would not make me happy. Whether it was spending too much time working and not enough time with my kids, too much time traveling and not enough time with my kids,

I've always sought balance like that. How has your fame and power impacted your marriage? It's a very good question. I mean, for the last, and I write about this in the book, for the last few years, I've been the primary breadwinner in our family. And I think initially, my husband and I didn't talk about it,

It just kind of happened and suddenly, you know, I would have a trip for work. And it kind of, and I had to take it because I was the primary breadwinner and it might conflict with one of his. And we took a while before we sorted it out in our marriage and had honest conversations about the fact that now I was the one earning significantly more. The trips I had to do for work sort of had to take precedence and he had to kick in more. I remember our kid's school started calling him rather than, me as the default parent. And I had a moment of kind of guilt of, wow, I'm not being a good mother because no one else they're calling the father rather than the mother.

And does that mean I'm a bad mother? And am I feeling excluded? And I had to kind of think of, and then I had to flip it and say, actually, you know what? No, that's that's exactly what I want to happen. I mean, if I want that to happen for society, then I have to be okay with it happening for me. So I think I had to kind of do, you know, I had to do some thinking of my own in terms of what it meant for me. And also we had to have some conversations about what it meant for us as a couple. Hmm.

Do you think much like I spoke about, I feel like it's almost built in my DNA to be that provider? Do you think there's something in women or even in you that you, I hate, I don't know if the right words nurturing. That sounds sexist in a way. you know what I mean. Like, is there something in a lot of women or most women where they want to be that phone call from school? They want to be organizing birthday parties. They feel the same thing doing that that I feel going out being a provider. Do you think there's something there or am I completely off? So, I mean, there are studies and we have research that shows that women tend to be more empathetic than men. And I don't want to make a sweeping generalization about all people because I don't know.

And I don't know how much of this is nurture versus nature. So there are studies that show that women tend to be more empathetic than men. And even as they get more power, they retain that empathy and that connection to those below them, which men tend not to do. But here's the really interesting thing about that. It's not clear from the studies, or rather, it's pretty clear from the studies that women tend to be more empathetic because society expects them to be more empathetic. It's not clear, in other words, that it's in our DNA. therefore the flip side must also be true. It's not clear that men cannot be just as empathetic as women,

particularly if society demanded it of them. Now, the number of stay-at-home dads in America hasn't risen. I think that is just as much because it is socially not acceptable as it is that men can't do these things. Men are perfectly capable of planning birthday parties and going to PTA meetings. And actually, when they do them, as they are starting to do, as you pointed out, there are a lot more dads turning up at soccer matches and a lot more dads getting involved in school things.

They enjoy it. They get a satisfaction from it because it is satisfying. And likewise, I have no interest, really. I've never enjoyed planning birthday parties. It just, you know, it was kind of a chore and I had to do it. It's just not something I've ever enjoyed doing. I'm sort of secretly quite happy to skip the odd PTA meeting and let my husband go to it.

So I don't know whether it's that women enjoy these things more or just that we've had centuries of social conditioning. You know, it's only the last 50 years that women have even had an option not to do these things. So I just think it's very hard to say that this is because women want to do these things more than men want to do them. Yeah. Has it been hard on your husband?

This shift of your power, fame, earning more, him shifting to more of the role of being the first call from the school, doing that. I'm curious, like, how it's impacted him. I think actually he, He would say that it's been an incredible sort of gift, really, that he has had to be in this position just because of my work and my travel commitments, that he has done, he's very involved in my, our daughter is finishing her high school exams at the moment.

And he's really involved in the study process of that and what she's doing and had more time to do that and her college applications. And I think he's loved it. I think he's really enjoyed it. And I think he would never, you know, his dad, who was born in 1914, never changed a diaper, never organized a play date, wouldn't have known what a lunchbox was if it hit him in the face, you know, would never have been to a PTA meeting.

He had no role model for that, my husband. I mean, you know, literally his dad had never done it. So the change that he has gone through in his life has been radical in terms of what his father did to what he's doing. And I think the most satisfying thing probably for him is looking at our kids, and know that they have seen not just a mother who's worked full time, but a dad who's been a really engaged dad. And that completely changes the next generation ship's relationship with fatherhood. You've written a lot about confidence as well.

And this is a question that comes up a lot with leaders. But the phrase I hear when I'm working with newly promoted leaders is that of imposter syndrome. And I think confidence plays a role here. I'm curious when you hear somebody say, Ryan, I got promoted and I'm trying to put on a good face for the team and everything. But deep down and I'm secretly, I don't know if I'm ready. I don't know if I belong. I don't know if I deserve this job. And when I was reading all of your work on confidence, I'm thinking, oh, Caddy probably has a lot of good stuff here to help with that question.

And I struggle with it. It's usually a much longer conversation about how deserving they are and how they've earned. it and they were chosen for a reason. When you think about confidence and imposter syndrome, what are some pieces of advice you give to that person who maybe feels like they were promoted before they were ready? There's a lot of social science that shows that women have a confidence gap compared to men, particularly when it comes to the work environment. We don't have it in our family environment and we don't have it on our friendships, but when it comes to the work environment, that thing of, you know, I was in the right place at the right time, I was just lucky.

That is something we hear women say a lot more than men. And there's a ton of evidence to back that up. One of the things we found is that, I mean, first of all, to be aware of the fact that there is a gap that helps and that you're not alone. It's not just you, that this is a common trait amongst women. The other is to think that are you trying to be perfectionist? women are much more prone to perfectionism at work. And one of the things that tends to hold women back at work is that they don't actually even go for those promotions

unless they have far more of the skills for the job that commensurate man might have. So there's been data that women will go for a promotion. If they have 100% of the skills, man will go for the same promotion if you have 60% of the same skills. The men are figuring out, well, I'll learn the rest when we get there. The women can learn the rest when they get there too. To what extent are women holding themselves back?

because the risk feels high, particularly if you're trying to be perfect. And women are more prone to perfectionism than the men. Our girls are more perone. This comes in at puberty, and we've done a lot of work on confidence and girls. It sets in at around the age of 10, 11, that girls start feeling they have to be perfect, and women have those same characteristics. The problem with being perfect is you're never going to get there. So give it up.

I mean, nobody's perfect. It's an impossible standard. robots might be perfect, but it's an annoying flaw in the human design that we are imperfect. You're imperfect, I'm imperfect, your boss is imperfect, your teacher is imperfect, everybody screws up. So learning how to deal with failure and screwing up and being imperfect is a very big part of closing the confidence gap. Think through what's the worst that will happen if I go for that promotion or if I ask for that

pay raise. The very worst thing that's going to happen is that somebody says no. So appreciate that maybe the risks, as you see it, are overblown compared to the downside. And then it's kind of cutting the ruminating, you know, that there's an internal feed loop that I think many women tend to go through of dwelling on, because of this perfectionism thing probably, dwelling on criticism, dwelling on the thing that's gone wrong. If you can cut the ruminating, ruminating is a big impediment to confidence as well. And there is a lot of cognitive behavioral therapy techniques that you can use to cut that. Katty, after eight and a half years of this, 550 plus of these, something that gives me a lot of confidence is I feel very fortunate to have spoken with some amazing people, people who are quite accomplished. And I'm often asked, what are the few things you've learned from all of these people?

Can you just distill it down as few as possible? I'll say actually I'll distill it down to one thing. The one thing that I've learned, and this gives me confidence, is we are all figuring it out as we go. Every single one of us. Every single one of us is figuring it out as we go. So in a way, I use that as inspiration. It makes me feel just a little bit better about everything I'm doing

because the more and more you talk with people, the more you're learning, we are all figuring it out as we go. And so for anyone dealing with imposter syndrome, just know, that that's just a universal truth that i've come up with after doing this for so long i think people want this grand big awesome thing leaders do this and it's like no they do do these great things but we're all figuring out as we go now we still need to work hard we need to be learners we need to be leaders right we got to do all that stuff but for the most part there may be a few random geniuses i guess mixed in there but for the most part we're all figuring out as we go

yeah and when you ask me you know how do you do it how do you do your career and how do you do it with four kids and in the books. I kind of muddle through basically. I mean, there's no, I wish I could give you, yes, do this on year one and then do this and it will be fail safe and you will absolutely manage to do everything. No, you figure it out like you say it's and some of it goes well and some of it doesn't go so well. But that's true for everybody.

That's true. We all, we all do some things better than others. We all screw up sometimes. And I think accepting that and accepting that in others, I think, you know, it's actually, it's a more humane, compassionate way of looking at yourself and other people. One of the stats that's out that's now you can see is that many more women are graduating college than men. How do you see that impacting the workforce in the next five, 10, 15, 20 years? I think that's the other sort of premise of our book, Women don't particularly want power. but also that the world would be better off.

And we know this because there are multiple studies now that show this global studies from the IMF, from Goldman Sachs, from Columbia University, Pepperdine University, they've all done studies showing that organizations are better off when we have more women in positions of leadership. And the point of the power code is how do we marry those two things? How do we get more? I'm on a mission. I want more women in power.

I mean, I'm pretty frank about that. and how do we overcome the hurdles of not wanting women in power? And if you look at women's educational achievements, we don't just get more bachelor's degrees. We get more postgraduate degrees. We even get more PhD now in America than men do. Women are eminently well qualified. If you just look at our educational achievements,

we should be running everything. I mean, if you just went basically on the basis of education, as one great sociologist put it, if life or one long grade school, women would be the undisputed rulers of the world. Unfortunately, it's not. So somewhere between school and the world of work, the rules change, and women stop playing so well. We stop achieving so well. And it's a question, I think, of understanding how those rules change and how we could perhaps

change the dynamics. But I think on educational basis, clearly women are making advances. Clearly, there are more women entering the workforce, getting into sense. senior positions, but the very top is still stubborn. 10% of women, 10% of Fortune 500 companies have female CEOs. There are 27 out of 193 countries in the world that have female leaders. It's even despite all of our educational achievements, the very top, depower positions are hard to budge.

How much of that, again, risky, how much of that is due to the fact that women have babies, that you have the insane, incredible, I mean, it's magic. I don't know how you do it, but that you have to carry a baby for nine months. You have to have a baby. All of that goes with the time after having a baby. Like how much of that do you think impacts all of this? Enormously. I mean, it's, you know, the mummy penalty is well documented.

When a man has a baby, his salary on average goes up by $6. When a woman has a baby, her salary on average goes down by $4 for every child she has. Wow. So there's a cost to a woman for having a baby. Men have a child and suddenly they're seen in a different way and they take on more responsibilities and they get promoted. Women have babies and that promotion becomes very difficult. So yes, I think there's a, and that's why we have to address the issue of care,

and that's why in an ideal world we would distribute the caregiving a little bit more evenly because it's hard for women to overcome that maternal, the mummy hurdle. And here's the irony. We spoke to Christine Lagarde, who's the head of, who was the first female head of the international, of the IMF and is now head of the European Central Bank, first female head. She's a string of first, first female head of the European Central Bank. And Christine Lagarde said to us, she had a revelation when she went home and she saw her daughter with a toddler and a newborn baby. And there is this her daughter, crisis managing, communicating, budgeting, running a household, doing all of the skills, actually enacting every single day, all of the skills that in corporate life ought to be the kinds of skills we want in leadership.

And not only did she go home and witness that, but because she is a powerful woman and the head of the European Central Bank, she went back to the board of the European Central Bank and said, I want to actually change the way we view that gap in a woman's resume when she has young children. And I want us to give a credit for all of those skills that that woman is enacting at home and use it to help her get back into the workforce or get promoted at work. So she changed the way the way,

European Central Bank saw motherhood. That's how power is changing. That's how things are going to change. Let's say there's a male CEO listening who has read Shane Snow's book Dream Teams. He's read all of your work, Hattie. Shane writes a lot about the fact that diversity of thought and people from all different places in the world, different educational experiences, men and women, ultimately prove to make up the best teams, the best performing teams.

Because a lot of CEOs say, I just want results. I don't care about anything. I just want a result. Well, this proves that that's how you get the results that you want, right? A diverse team, the science really backs that up. I know you've written a lot about that too. What do you say to that man in this case who says, I believe you. I'm on board.

But if you look at our current setup, our C-suite is nowhere close to where it needs to be. What are some practical things that person can do right now? So I think that one example comes from a guy called David Leonard, who's the CEO of Tetro law firm in Canada, big law firm in Canada, and he was the one that brought up this idea of promoting people on the basis of promise or performance. Really look at whether your promotion systems in your organization are mitigating against promoting women. Are you expecting women to have gone through a certain number of hurdles but promoting guys on the basis of promise? You can choose. change those systems. You can look at the promotion process. Are you instituting mandatory checklists that make it hard for women to accelerate? So for example, there are several major companies, multinationals, and we've spoken to some of them, that had a requirement that you have to have had a stint abroad, running a department abroad in order to be eligible for the C-suite. that's really hard for a lot of women because women who are in senior positions

tend to have male partners who are also in senior positions, men who are in senior positions quite often have women who are stay-at-home mothers. Can you change that checklist? Is it really necessary to have that long stint abroad that a woman is not able to do and therefore automatically can't join the C-suite or could she just do trips, you know, twice a year? Are there other things you could do in the US? So I think you have to look at the systems that you have in place that are making it hard for women to succeed. And you really have to impress upon everybody in the organisation

exactly the data that you've just spoken about, which is that it's diverse teams that make for better business outcomes. And by diverse teams, we don't just mean alpha men with skirts on. We mean actually diversity, like diverse experiences, including parenting, including caregiving. where you come from race, gender, et cetera. So arm the men with the data and arm the women with the data and explain to your organization why you're doing this.

This is a bottom line issue. It's not a nice PC issue. And then look at the hurdles that are in place that you need to knock down. Love it. One more question, Katty. Your meeting with somebody who's at their earlier parts of their career, perhaps they just graduated college. They don't really know what they want to do,

but they do want to leave a positive dent in the world. They do want to do good, right? they see your career, they're inspired by what you've done. What are some general pieces of life slash career advice you give to that person? I speak quite often in colleges and I'm asked this question. And one of the things that I tend to say is take some time to go and live in a different culture. You know, get a backpack, get a plane ticket. It almost doesn't matter where you go, but don't just do it for two weeks.

Go for six months or a year. Try and learn the language. you will bring back to your country and to your organization experiences that will be invaluable. There is no substitute for understanding that the world is a big place and the way to do that and a big complex but not necessarily scary place. And a way to do that is to really, and you will, and you know, if you're thinking of it totally in Machiavellian terms, your resume will look very different because you have spent a year in Senegal compared to all the other people that you are competing against.

and you will have learned things about yourself, about that country, about the world and the way it works. And I think that's probably the best thing that you can never do. And that's a great time to do it before other stuff gets in the way. Do it straight out of college. Exactly. Yeah, before kids and family and all of that get in the way. Exactly. Yeah.

Caddy, this is amazing. The book that I highly recommend, because not only is it informative and helpful, but it's also very entertaining. It's very well written, not surprising. You and your co-author Claire Shipman have done this before, but you've done it again. And the book's called The Power Code, More Joy, Less Ego, Maximum Impact for Women and Everyone. Really well done, Katty. And thank you so much for being here today.

I love to continue our dialogue as we both progress. I know I have a lot to learn from you. Ryan, thank you. That was a really great conversation. I really enjoyed it. God, was that an hour? It felt like 10 minutes. Thank you very much.

That was great. Thank you. It's the end of the podcast club. Thank you so much for being part of the end of the podcast club. If you are, send me a note. Ryan at learning leader.com. Let me know what you learned from the great caddy K. Here's a few things I have noted.

Redefining power. In the past, it seems to be about dominance, about something you hold over something, people or resources. And instead, we want it to be used to affect positive change. Let's think about how we can use power. for good. And then relationships and marriages. I thought we had a great conversation about men stepping up to do more of the birthday planning and becoming more involved in the day-to-day elements of parenting. And based on, I think being out in the world, talking with friends and seeing

who shows up, I think this is getting better. I do think we're doing better as guys at this, but there's still a lot of room to grow. But with that said, I feel, and I don't know if this controversial or not, but I feel it is baked into me, almost in my core, my DNA as a leader, to be a provider for my family. It could be a me problem. It could be something that I need to work through. But I feel a great sense of fulfillment by providing for my family. It's almost like I have a mission to go on every day.

And I like feeling like I'm accomplishing that mission to help provide for my family. And then I appreciated the idea of promoting on promise versus promoting on performance. While it's important that we probably do both of those things, we have to both perform and see people for their promise. But the research states that more men are promoted on promise than women, and women are mostly promoted based on their performance. And I think as leaders, let's think about promise versus performance and promise and performance. And as Frank Sleutman said, on an earlier podcast episode,

let's hire people, quote, ahead of their curve. And that should go both for men and women, not just for men, if they are more promoted on their promise versus performance. So I think that's something for all of us as leaders to think about. And that's a great way to phrase it, promise and performance. I once again, I would say, thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two. Hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leadership with Caddy Kay. I think she'll help you become a more effective leader. And because you continue to do that and you continue to go to Ryanhawk.net,

which will launch you into Apple Podcasts. And once you're there, you write a thoughtful review and hopefully rate the show five stars. And by doing that, you are continuing to give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.