Women at Work - How to Manage: Being Taken Seriously

Episode Date: June 5, 2023

If you’re a woman who’s a new manager, people will probably push back on your authority. As difficult as defiance is to face—especially when you’re settling in yourself—we have ideas for making it clear that you’re in charge. McKinsey’s Lareina Yee recounts the actions that senior leaders took that affirmed her position. Kelsey reflects on the disrespect she felt as a first-time manager, as well as her discomfort with power, and Amy B helps her make sense of those experiences and feelings. If you manage a woman who’s a new manager, this episode is for you too!

Over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash women at work. So Amy B, what does being taken seriously at work mean to you? What I would say it means is being trusted and respected in my role. How about you? What does it mean to you? I think to me it's about being heard and being listened to and not having like your ideas or decisions constantly questioned. And this is coming from a place of I'm thinking back to when I first became a manager and it was so frustrating when I would delegate something or make a decision. And then my direct reports would wait until my boss weighed in or wouldn't complete a project that I gave them

and just didn't even bat an eye at the idea that they just weren't listening to me at all. Yeah. I mean, that's incredibly painful, and I'm having flashbacks to exactly the same kind of experience when I first became a manager. Like what? Well, I remember being put in charge of a magazine section where my credibility was questioned. Why did I deserve that job?

I had people reporting to me who had been my peers and who were my friends, they were the people I had lunch with every day, who didn't respect my approaches, who would ignore it when I'd say, let's do it this way, not that way, who would do end runs around me to my boss. Yeah. And that happened all the time. And I wasn't sure if it was because my decisions weren't good. I didn't know if it was because I was young and new to this and didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know if it was because I was a woman. I just didn't know why I wasn't

being taken seriously. All I knew was that it felt bad and it felt like I wasn't doing a good job. And I did not like that at all. You felt undermined, didn't you? So did you do anything about it? I would talk to my boss about, you know, how do we make it so that I have the authority and decision-making capability that you're telling me I have? Because it really was that disconnect. I was being told like, you have this authority,

you have this power, but I was seeing in the actions of everyone around me that that wasn't actually true. And so I talked to him about like, how do we make it clearer to people that my decisions are final, that we can move forward based on what I'm saying. And I think to a degree, he really did try and help. But at the end of the day, like, my direct reports were going to do what they were going to do, kind of. And what I ended up doing was just leaving that job and deciding, okay, I'm just never going to be a manager again. And that was kind of my solution to the problem was avoidance, which I don't think is great, but.

Okay, we are going to talk about that. I hope so. You're listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I'm Amy Bernstein. And I'm Kelsey Alpeo. Before, I thought I wasn't cut out for managing people, but now I wonder how much of that self-doubt was me having absorbed their doubts about my suitability for the job. So many of us women have to deal with that assumption that we aren't cut out to lead others. Here's how some of you described it.

When I first started, my co-workers didn't really appreciate me or consider me an authority position. They diminished my accomplishments. They diminished my orders. They would make passive-aggressive comments, kind of marking that I was a new manager, but not in a supportive way, more of a kind of a pecking order. It's interesting when before becoming manager, I was expected to perform and excel to prove myself. And then once you're in the role, you almost go back to zero. It's just very interesting to see how hard I had to work and excel at it until I was excelling. And then the minute I got the title, none of my experiences or previous connections mattered anymore. I tried to use the approach where I was very polite, but I think that that also affected how they viewed me as someone with power.

I feel like instead of my politeness being an asset, it became a liability because it translated into a lack of command or authority. I haven't started in my managing position just yet, but it's definitely something that I'm thinking about, whether my authority will be respected, especially considering my, I would say, fairly young age and the fact that I will probably manage people that are quite a lot more experienced than myself. That was Maria Cherry-Pola and a woman who wanted to remain anonymous. Thank you all for contributing your thoughts. Hearing these reflections, it really helps me understand just how hostile some people turn once we have just a little bit of formal power. And not only do we need to win over our direct reports,

it's like we have to prove ourselves again and again to our managers, our peers, our senior leaders. Yeah, it's constant struggle. And it's one that begins even before you assume the formal role. You know it's coming. Yeah, like in that last clip, you just hear her already worrying about what it's going to be like to have to gain that authority. And there's no comfort to be given there because she's absolutely right. And the woman we're about to interview knows this struggle well. Lorena Yee is a senior partner at McKinsey, and she co-founded the firm's annual Women in the Workplace report. In surveying women in corporate America for the last several years,

she's tracked the ways companies make entering management harder for us. And then once we're in, they treat us like we didn't earn it. Lorena, this is a question that I asked Amy B. at the very beginning of this episode, and I want to ask you, too, what does it mean to you to be taken seriously? Being taken seriously is that the people that you work with are not just looking at you. They're listening to you. And they're engaging with you. And if I think of some of the basic markers, getting feedback, your work being reviewed,

being supported to do better, all of that. But I think you were also asking something on a more personal level. What does it feel like to be taken seriously? How is it that you're sitting at a table and you feel that you're being taken seriously? For me, it's all about that sense of camaraderie, that sense of collaboration, that sense of honesty. That's when you know you're being taken seriously for your brain. And that was particularly important to me early on. Lorena, how did you become a manager? I worked my way up from the bottom, a very traditional approach. I had an entry-level position, worked really hard, and then received the next promotion. And then in that next role, I started managing a small team. And then a couple of years later received that manager title. And I would say that

at the time, I thought that you just kind of kept your nose down and worked really hard and you would become a manager naturally. But now that I look at all the data, I realize that there were probably more barriers there than I was fully aware of. Yeah. Thinking about the 2022 Women in the Workplace report, you wrote about the broken rung, which is that for every 100 men who are promoted from entry-level roles to manager positions, only 87 women are promoted and only 82 women of color. So why are people shunning us? Is it because they don't take us seriously? The crux of it isn't about being taken seriously. The crux of it is the types of biases

and behaviors that exist in the workplace. And so one of the things that we write a lot about are the microaggressions that happen, the thousand cuts during the day. So women will have their judgment questioned. They will be less likely to receive support in terms of how do you want to grow? What is the next opportunity in front of you? Women of color will often be questioned in terms of their ability to master the English language, questioned in terms of where they're from, questioned in terms of their age, or mistaken for someone significantly younger. And the list goes on. So Lorena, when you are working with a woman who is going to make that first leap into management. How do you talk to her about that?

Getting into the new role is only the first test. Do you discuss the microaggressions? I think women like to know what's ahead of them. And the power of the data is that it gives actual context. It says that you experienced something last Tuesday at 3 o'clock. That's not just you. That's not an isolated experience. In fact, the vast majority of women in America are experiencing that same thing. And then the second thing that's very powerful is to realize that there may be five or six barriers ahead of me. I may or may not hit them, but they're not going to surprise me because someone early on put a couple ideas in my head. And if I hit one of them, I won't be surprised. In fact, I'll be ready to conquer it. So, you know, those death by a thousand cuts moments, is it important to understand when a behavior is a microaggression as opposed to just sort of sailing right past it, maybe impervious to it? It's a great question. There was one experience

when I started out that I didn't quite understand at the time it happened. And so let me describe this. In my own office, in my own company, it was very professional. I felt very heard. I felt appreciated for my contributions. I felt deeply respected. I went to a client meeting. It was my first really big client meeting. So I got there early. I was very prepared, read my notes three times, had the portion I was going to present memorized. I mean, I was definitely overprepared because that's what you do in your first big high stakes executive meeting. And I was excited to sit at the table. So I sat down at the table and the chairman, who had never met me, mistaken me in his mind for the person who was supposed to be serving tea. We were in Asia. And so he brushily looked over at me and said, who is she? And essentially was asking, why am I sitting down?

I felt immediately an intense sense of isolation in those couple of seconds and kind of imposter syndrome. Why am I here? I couldn't think. My brain was stalled. I was like a deer in headlights. I couldn't even process it. Did he say that out loud?

And it probably wasn't more than 10 actual seconds when the senior partner with the highest level of authority or kind of role or power from the organization that I worked at said, oh, she's actually in charge of the work stream that's looking to recover your business. So we'll turn over to her since she's leading the meeting. And what he did was he threw the power back at me. That is allyship. Someone of a different type, so someone who is senior, someone who is male, stepped in and interrupted that bias as it happened. And then switched the dynamics of the meeting and created psychological safety for me. All of those fancy words, I didn't know. I was a couple years out of grad school. It was my first job. I mean, those moments, I can think back to my first job too and just the moments that were so

gut-wrenching because they made me feel like I didn't know what I was doing or that I wasn't cut out to be in the role that I was in. You know, when I went to my boss and was like, hey, my direct reports aren't listening to me. They aren't respecting my authority. What can we do here? And he tried to be that ally. And I give him a lot of credit for that. But at the end of the day, my direct reports still didn't respect my authority and didn't respect my decisions. And so I'm wondering, what would you have done in that position as my boss or as the boss of a new manager who needs their authority to be a little bit more reinforced? What would you do in that situation?

One of the techniques that I like is standing with the person. So I had this experience just like you did, where I was convening a group of colleagues, punching up a little above my weight, and I was really, inside I was really intimidated. Would the 30 people I had invited to this meeting show up? Did they want to be under my leadership? Would they go? And what an amazing colleague did was he flew to the meeting in London. It was not actually in his way.

It wasn't convenient, but he flew in and he kicked it off. And he stood there with me and said, I'm so excited that Lorraine is leading this. We definitely need this initiative. This is going to be great. It's so wonderful to see everybody. And so it was taking his power and sharing it with me and standing by me and reinforcing and communicating to everyone that she's the leader here. I support her. And I also expect that we're all a team and that you will support her and that we're going to go create something of real value and importance to this organization. So I love the standing by her. And so what could your boss have done differently? I think what he could have done differently is when someone came to him to ask about a

decision I'd made, he could have turned them around and say, OK, really think about why you're coming to me about this when I've told you that Kelsey is in charge of making these decisions or Kelsey's the leader in that area and really turning that person around and really having them investigate why they were going around me or why they weren't listening to my delegation or my decisions. I think that could have helped a lot. Yeah. Amy, what would you have done? Well, you know, I think the story that you told about your manager who has demonstrated really amazing allyship, that's inspiring. But my instinct in the situation that you described, Lorena, and the one that Kelsey has described, is to take you aside, walk into a room, shut the door and say,

let's talk about what just went on in there, sort of break it down. And my goal would be to deal with that feeling of isolation and self-doubt because I get it, I have felt it. I know it's very real. And I think that can be paralyzing. I also think that you have to turn the corner in that conversation into validation. You're in this job because you deserve to be in this job. But no one is born knowing how to do this piece of the job. Managing is really hard. And it's important for people to understand that management takes a lot of work. And you build skills, you build muscle, and you build muscle memory. So it's not always a natural transition for people.

In fact, it does take a certain kind of reset in your own head when you make that transition from solo contributor to manager and to talk that through. And then, you know, depending on the relationship I have with the woman, I would want to check back and provide a sounding board, coaches needed, do what I can to support this woman as she's making this very difficult transition. I also think there's a hard discussion for first-time managers on you have power, and how do you use it? It may feel uncomfortable to tell someone, no, that's not acceptable. This is what we're going to do. How do you use your power? And it's a word we're afraid to use in the workplace.

I think that's so insightful. Connected with that is something I find myself saying, particularly to women moving into positions of responsibility, which is stop worrying about making everyone like you. It's not about winning a popularity contest. Winning respect is a different kind of game, right? Respect and likability are not the same thing. Absolutely not. We conflate that all the time. All the time.

What does the future hold for business? Can someone please invent a crystal ball? Until then, over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. With real-time insights and forecasting, you're able to peer into the future and seize new opportunities. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash women at work. That's netsuite.com slash women at work.

Hey, listeners, if you want to hear from more leaders to help you answer questions like, should I talk about my anxiety at work? Or how do I claim my leadership power? Then you should listen to TED Business, hosted by Columbia Business School Professor Madhupe Akinnola. The show features TED Talks about everything from setting smart goals to the latest on DEI in business, followed up with a mini lesson from Madhupe on how to apply these lessons in your own life. Listen to TED Business wherever you get your podcasts. Lorena, before we let you go, I'd love to get your thoughts on some apprehension we heard from a listener who is about to become a manager and she's kind of already worried

about not being taken seriously and she's worried about how she'll gain authority, what can she do to prepare? If you're worried about something, it's hard if you're constantly saying, oh, well, don't worry about it. In some ways, it makes you worry about it even more. It's a very natural human reaction. And so take that forward. What if on my first day, people are multitasking in the meeting, and it feels like they're not taking me seriously? What would I do then? Because then it's not so scary because you'll go into your first day, your first month armed with a plan. The other thing I would just say is, if you're in that role and it's not

working out very well in your first couple of months? I think a lot of times people, both men and women, will internalize that. They'll hide that from others. So then the question is, if it's going badly, or if you're worried it's going badly, who are the three or four people you can trust? They could be people outside of work. They could be colleagues from your other group. And share with them that it's not going well and seek their advice. Or just to actually say that it's not going well sometimes actually makes you feel a lot better. Yeah. I was almost like ashamed of the fact that I felt like I wasn't good at being a manager. And so I didn't talk about it and I didn't go to anyone. And I think that made it so much harder for my boss to intervene. It made it so much harder for my peers

to help me make that transition. And being honest with yourself and with them can go a really long way. But in order to do that, you do need the premise of psychological safety. So you may not feel comfortable going to the person who just promoted you. That's why having people within your workplace, outside of your workplace, and peers can be really important. So I do think if you feel like you're stumbling or you feel like you're really vulnerable, going to someone you can trust who's going to keep that in confidence and has your interest at heart is really important.

Absolutely. Loranda, this has been so great. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Amy and Kelsey. I've so enjoyed being here. It was pretty eye-opening for me to hear you and Lorena talk about power and likeability and respect. And it brought me back to what we heard from one of our listeners early in the episode

about how she would use politeness to try and gain authority or to get people to do what she wants. And that really struck a chord with me because I've been that person. I've been the person who tries to be nice and polite to get what I want. And similarly, it's never really worked for me, but I'm wondering what your thoughts are about that. You know, leading with likability is just going to get you in trouble. Have you ever been able to win someone over who didn't like you without giving up an essential part of yourself? I mean, that's the thing.

You have to recognize that making people like you doesn't win anything. So for me, it's really more about prioritizing the other qualities that got you into this role in the first place. Your competence, your candor, your openness to new ideas. Maybe it's the fact that you don't embrace the hierarchy. You treat everyone with respect and as an equal. I think that if you communicate all of that, you will win respect. Now, being respected is not being liked necessarily. You better ask yourself what you care about more, right? But I really do think that if you lead with the stuff that got you where you are, the value that you bring to the team,

to the project, you will win the respect that's a lot more important than the like, if you know what I mean. The other thing is with your new role does come power. And you really do need to find a way to be comfortable with that. You don't have to work against it with likability. You don't have to imply some kind of apology for it. You earned this, right? And with that power comes responsibility, which you accept. Yeah, I think that's an interesting point too, where it's like lead not with likability, lead with what got you the role in the first place.

And I think what was so hard for me was that I didn't have confidence in those skills at the time that I became a manager because I felt like I wasn't good at it as I keep coming back to. And so I wanted to lean on that likability so hard. But on the other end of it, I was being told, stop apologizing, change the way you speak so that you don't upswing at the end, stop using exclamation points. All of these things that I had associated with making people happy or making people like me more because I was softening what I was saying. And it was really tough for me to let go of those things because they kind of did resonate with who I was as a person at the time. And so, you know, when I

quit that job and stopped being a manager, it was almost a sigh of relief because it felt like I didn't have to pretend to be someone I wasn't anymore. But at the same time, I wonder, was that actually good advice? Is it the right thing to do to change even those small things about yourself to gain that authority? Well, I think that whoever gave you that advice probably didn't frame it right. Because the advice never to apologize, I mean, whatever. Apologize if you're wrong. But don't apologize for taking up space, for offering an idea, for contributing to a project. Don't apologize for delivering value. And if you believe that the way you express yourself undermines you, then we need to dig into why. And so any mode of communication, whether it's the

uptalk or it's the unnecessary apology, suggests that you don't believe in yourself, that you're doubting the value you give. And you need to know that people can read those cues, and those cues are impossible to ignore. Right. So when the message that you are delivering is, yeah, I don't think I'm worthy, then why would anyone think you're worthy? So I would never say don't apologize. In fact, definitely apologize if you're wrong. That feels much closer to me than pretending like I don't feel bad about something I messed up. And sitting in that guilt was way worse than typing I'm sorry in an email because those two words can probably go a long way for somebody that was impacted by

something negative that I did. Well, it says so much about your sense of yourself and your self-awareness when you own a mistake, when you own that something you did caused someone else pain or cost them time or something that you probably didn't even intend. So I think that taking ownership of your own behavior and your own missteps that will help you grow, not just in your own eyes, but in the eyes of those around you, I think. Right. If you're taking your own actions seriously, everyone else will take you more seriously too. Amen.

What does the future hold for business? Can someone please invent a crystal ball? Until then, over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. With real-time insights and forecasting, you're able to peer into the future and seize new opportunities. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash womenatwork. That's netsuite.com slash womenatwork. Let's go back to something you said. You were talking about what got you the promotion in the

first place what was it oh I guess I guess that's what's tough about it because I kind of got thrown into it it didn't feel like I earned it because of my skills or because of who I was as an employee I earned it because I was the only person really there who could take on. No, are you sure of that, Kelsey? I mean, I guess not. I think my boss wanted to give me the opportunity. That's what it was in my head was it was a really small company. There was like six of us and it would be either me or the CEO who managed this new person. And so to me, I was kind of like, well, he doesn't want to have to manage someone else because he's managing this whole person. And so to me, I was kind of like, well, he doesn't want to have to manage someone else because he's managing this whole company. So it almost felt like

I didn't earn it. And I think that's why it was harder for me to lean into my actual skills that did actually qualify me for that role, because I don't think I was unqualified for it. But at the time, it didn't feel like I had earned it. Did your boss ever say why you got that promotion? Or did he just say, here, you're now a manager, go manage? I think the way we talked about it was this is an opportunity for you to learn how to manage someone and to have someone who can help you with your work so that you can delegate and learn how to be a people manager. I think that's kind of what the message was. Oh, so it sounds as if there was a recognition that these were skills yet to be developed, but the implication that you had what

it takes to develop them, right? Yeah. Okay. So one thing I'm going to take away from this conversation is that it is really important the next time I promote someone into a new management role to say why I believe that person is the right person for the job, because you need to give what I'm hearing, and I hadn't really thought about until right now, is that it's important to give people in that new role something to hold on to, a sense of why they're there, and a kind of concrete idea of why you believe in them.

Sometimes I have said, this is a recognition of your skills and blah, blah, blah. But, you know, it's whatever floats through my head. It's not planned. So I think I need to be more intentional about that. I think that might have helped you, right? I think so, yeah. One thing that actually scared me that Lorena said was this idea about having to lean into your power. And I'm wondering what your advice is around how to get more comfortable with having power and being okay with that word.

I think you have to kind of interrogate being okay with that word. I think you have to kind of interrogate your relationship with that word. Can you say a little more about why you don't feel comfortable? I think in a way it's almost overwhelming to have power because that means you have responsibility and you have people who are now reliant on you. And that can be really scary. And it's sometimes easier to just be like, I don't really want that power because then I don't have to have that responsibility.

I don't have to feel overwhelmed by the word. It almost does feel like a word that's like above you and like showers down on you. Does that make sense? It totally does. And I think the acceptance of responsibility is for me a lot easier than the understanding that others think I have power. And I rarely think about my, even saying my power, I can barely spit those two words out in that way. And partly because, you know, we also work in a world where no one has the authority to make unilateral decisions about anything really. And critical judgment requires that you take in as much information as possible and you want to get buy-in from the people around you and from stakeholders so you're constantly selling ideas and trying to answer questions.

So it doesn't actually feel all that powerful to be me. Right. if it helps you to think about it as something that others feel coming off of you rather than something you send out, than a vibe you send out. Does that help? And does it ring true? I think so. I mean, it's definitely reass and the idea of it, I thought came from a place of weakness, but I don't think it does. I think you're right. It comes from, I don't want people, I think it comes back to likability. I don't want people to be scared of me. And I think exuding power, like you said, can make people scared of you. That's so interesting because you're conflating power with intimidation.

I guess so. Yeah. I guess that is why it kind of scares me. Kelsey, do I intimidate you? No. I think... Ugh. I failed. no i think i failed well let me let me expand you don't scare me but i have been like afraid to reach out to you because i want you to like me and i want you to respect my work so you intimidate me in the way that i value your opinion so much, but you don't scare me. All right. I'm going to have to absorb that.

So it's interesting that you wouldn't reach out because I love it when you reach out. We've recently for this podcast had reason to interact, and I love interacting with you. You have done so much of the work, the legwork on this podcast. And I am so, well, first of all, I'm so impressed with what you've done. The work is so good and so appreciative of what you've done because you've set us up for success. And I know that this was not easy, and it's not as if you've done because you've set us up for success. And I know that this was not easy. And it's not as if you've done this before. And you jumped right in and you tackled it. And you did a fantastic job. And I have definitely learned along the way that you have to say these things out loud, that I have to say these things out loud. Because I've been where you are, and I know what

it's like not to hear it. So I will make a point to say that to you. And I did. Yeah, this is like the best moment of my week right now. And I mean, I'm just like basking in the way I feel after you told me that, because it does, it feels so good to hear that from someone that I look up to and someone that does have, you know, a lot of power in our organization. And it makes me think about no matter what stage of leadership you're in, how important it is to convey that regularly and to tell your direct reports and the people on your team exactly how you feel about the work that they're doing and exactly why they have the roles that they have. Because I mean, if I can

make everybody feel the way that like you just made me feel, like that's so much better than likability. You cannot like me, but I know that I've made your day and your work better by conveying that. But you don't even need a power differential to achieve what you just described. I mean, you work on teams all the time. And I know that there are moments when you really appreciate your colleagues. And if you say it, don't be fatuous and don't go over the top. You don't want to lose credibility. And then you want to say what you mean, right?

And make it count. But those moments of recognition and appreciation go a long way. And they're way more important to winning respect. To have someone love working with you is a whole lot better than being the one who everyone likes. Right. That's our show. I'm Kelsey Alpeo. I'm Amy Bernstein. HBR has more podcasts to help you manage yourself, your team, and your organization. Find them at hbr.org slash podcasts or search HBR on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Women at Work's editorial and production team is Amanda Kersey, Maureen Hoke, Tina Tobey-Mack, Rob Eckhart, Erica Truxler, Ian Fox, and Hannah Bates.

Rob and Maura compose this theme music. Next week, Amy G. teaches us how to deal with conflict. There's going to be the immediate thing you want to do because it feels most comfortable or it feels easy or it feels right. And really, you have to think a little bit further ahead. In one month, next week, six months, is the choice I'm making about how to deal with this going to get me the results I want to see? She'll explain how to prepare for disagreements before they happen, manage the tension in the moment, and develop a resolution. Thanks for listening.

Get in touch with me and the Amys about how to manage or anything else by emailing womenatwork at hbr.org.