Women at Work - Lead with Authenticity

Episode Date: February 9, 2018

As leaders, we know we’re supposed to be authentic, but for women, that can be tricky. For one thing, it can be hard to even know what our “true selves” want with all the demands competing for our attention. For another, there are different expectations about how women should look, and behave. In this episode, we talk with an expert on authenticity, as well as a woman trying everyday to bring her best self to work and help others do the same. Guests: Tina Opie and Candice Morgan. Our theme music is Matt Hill’s “City in Motion,” provided by Audio Network. For links to the articles mentioned in this episode, as well as other information about the show, visit hbr.org/podcasts/women-at-work.

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. It's a Tuesday morning in early February, and I look pretty much like I usually do at the office. I'm wearing gray pants and a beige sweater. And because I have a big meeting, I've added a navy blazer and pearls. I even blow dried my hair. Usually, I just comb it in the car on the drive-in and throw it up in a bun. And makeup, I mean, today I did a coat of black mascara, but honestly, some days I feel so busy that I forget to do that. To be honest, I really hate having to think about what I wear to work. At the same time, I know that my outward appearance affects whether or not I can have the impact that I want to at work. Tina Opie knows what I'm talking about.

Substance should absolutely be the thing that you focus on the most. But what you don't want is an appearance that detracts or distracts from your substance. She's an assistant professor of management at Babson College, and she researches and writes about how organizations can help or hurt employees' attempts to be themselves at work. Authenticity is what it feels like when you can bring your whole self to work, when your behavior matches your intentions. And researchers have found that feeling authentic at the office

has been linked to higher engagement, higher work-life satisfaction, better performance, and better overall well-being. That's why authentic leadership has become something of a gold standard at many companies today. But there's a challenge for women who want to be authentic at work, where daughters, mothers, sisters, bosses, and all these different roles can be tough to reconcile. So while authentic leadership is often viewed as geared toward a single true north, as women we live in a multipolar world. How can we be true to ourselves when there are so many competing selves?

You're listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I'm Nicole Torres, Associate Editor. I'm Sarah Green Carmichael, Executive Editor. I'm Amy Bernstein, Editor of HBR. In this episode, you'll hear from Tina Opie, the Babson professor who studies authentic leadership. Then I talked to Candice Morgan about how she's making Pinterest a workplace

where employees' style, whether it's dress or communication, doesn't count against them. After that, Sarah, Amy, and I look back on the times when we wanted to fit in at work and when we wanted to stand out. We sat down with Tina to talk about what feels authentic to us, what doesn't. We dug into how we show or hide anger. We swapped so many stories about ourselves, women we've worked with, even our mothers. Here, Sarah starts us off. I worked with a woman once who had been pulled aside by our boss. And the boss said, you know, you have a lot of potential.

I could see you moving into management. But if you want to do that, you need to dress differently and you should start wearing makeup. Everyone in this case was a woman. But my peer who'd been given this advice was furious. I was like, that is so sexist. I can't believe she would say that I have to wear makeup to get ahead in this company. How do you think about that? I mean, is it sexist to give someone that kind of advice? Here's the thing. We have to sort of differentiate between how we want the world to be and how the world actually is. So would I like that advice to never be heard or never be uttered?

Because if this is the way you want to go to work, you're completely fine as long as you're doing an amazing job at your work. That's the kind of world I want to live in. That's the kind of world that I've dedicated my research and teaching towards building. But unfortunately, that is not the world in which we live. We live in a world where impressions matter, where appearance is highly connected to impressions, unfortunately, fortunately or unfortunately. And the bottom line is you all have done a lot of research here at HBR on sort of the way that humans automatically categorize other people. It's instantaneous. You see something and you categorize it. And because of those types of connections, we automatically think, okay, this kind of person is going to be more professional. This kind of person is not going

to be. If you happen to fall into the latter category, you may have some additional work that you have to do to demonstrate that you are, in fact, fierce, professional, amazing. But that may come after the fact, after that initial impression that you are not those things. My brilliant and wise mother, who was an advertising executive, when I graduated from college with a wardrobe that consisted of two pairs of blue jeans and three button-down shirts, she took me shopping before I started my first job. And she made me buy a straight skirt and a nice jacket and a nice blouse. And these were, you know, if you had dressed me in a Superman outfit, I could not have felt more uncomfortable in this and less authentic. And her advice to me was, if you want to be the vice president eventually, dress like the vice president.

And all these years later, I think about that because I think that that was excellent advice to someone who didn't understand what being authentic in the new context would be. What do you think of that? Well, Amy, what your mother did was provide you with a uniform, right? So we don't like to think of ourselves as professionals having to wear uniforms. We sort of, I mean, this is, it's classist a little bit in our minds. We're like, we're above that.

We're more professional. That's for other people to have to wear uniforms. But the business suit is, in fact, a uniform. And I have done some research which talks about sort of the origins of the business suit, which is very Eurocentric. It comes from royal court. It was very masculine. from each other and to show a certain level of modesty. Because initially, while the suits were super, super brilliant in color, reds and purples and et cetera, eventually they toned down to what we now have, navies, blacks, grays, very subdued, subtle colors, because that conveyed and communicated a certain level of professionalism and trustworthiness, right? So your mother was literally extending to you the same kind of advice she was offering to you to wear a uniform. And what I think is important is, again, going back to the earlier point, that she was introducing you

or helping to socialize you into a new world. The corporate world, the workforce was new for you. You had no idea. If you had shown up with those jeans and one of those button down shirts, you probably would have been flabbergasted and embarrassed when you got there because no one else would have been attired in that way. Now, I will also say that one of my goals is, I mean, right now I have on jeggings, you know, a nice floral top, some cute earrings. My hair is up in a puff. I hope to run a corporation where I can be the CEO and be dressed exactly this way.

And I dare anybody to come in there and tell me I'm unprofessional. Can I sit and watch? Now, I also want to have a corporation, though, where if someone is more comfortable in a business suit, they feel comfortable wearing that. So your students come to you for advice all the time. Can you walk us through a conversation when a student has come asking for advice about how to dress for the job interview, how to wear her hair, something like that? Right. So I actually have, so I can use the student's name because she has gone on the record telling the same story. So I have a former student who has now graduated from Babson.

Her name is Nadia. And I was actually doing a workshop on authenticity in the workplace at Babson. And she said, you know, I see that you wear your hair natural. Do you think it's OK if I wear my hair natural to the workplace? And what I did was walk her through. I said, listen, do you want do you like your natural hair? Yes, I feel good about it. It makes me feel good as a Black Latina woman. That's really what I'd like to do. Great. So we're establishing the fact that that is connected to her authenticity

and her identity. Then I said, where are you interested in going? I want to go into law. Okay. So Nadia, describe for me the kind of context or environment you think you're going to confront in the legal profession. Well, they're very conservative, tailored suits. And when she said they, she was describing the men. And then we quickly went into the women. It was very similar. And I don't think we can escape the fact that initially women's business attire was very much created to replicate or duplicate men's business attire. Women's uniforms in the workplace were designed to cover up their femininity and their differences. So the first thing is I established with the student, Nadia, what her authentic identity was. Then we established the legal context. And here comes

the difficult part. And here comes the difficult part. People would like there to be a clear cut answer. There is not. I told her that she has to weigh the consequences, right? So if your hair is authentic to you, if you feel like you're giving up, you're selling yourself out, you're conforming to a point where it just makes you uncomfortable, then perhaps that's not the best decision. But do understand that if you walk into this particular context, it may mean that you don't get the job interview, you don't get a job, you don't get the assignments. The alternative, you conform and you straighten your hair. Because for many people of African descent, when we say conform, what we mean when it comes to their hair is we

mean cover it, which is to straighten it, to get rid of any visible evidence of your Africanness, of your blackness. You can do that. But if that is going to make you feel bad about yourself, then maybe that's not the best place for you to be. Now, that is a very privileged comment to make, because if you have to pay your bills, you're straightening your hair. You're going to cover up the tattoo. You're going to get rid of the piercings. You're going to, you know, now there are some things people might say, well, we'd be more, we would like her more if she was a little whiter. I can't do anything with my skin color.

I mean, I guess you can, but I'm not willing to go. The cost of that is so high that most people are not willing to do that. But we do have instances of people who are willing to change their names. Right. We've seen that quite a bit, specifically in the Asian community. Right. They will change their name. They will go. I mean, I saw an example of many students who will say, just call me Amy. Yeah. But I want to actually call them by the name that's on their birth certificate. But for them, that is uncomfortable because it calls out their Asian-ness. And what I want to get to is a place in the workforce where we are all able to bring who we authentically identify and describe ourselves as to the workforce.

And our colleagues and classmates embrace that rather than trying to get us to conform. So aside from appearance, how else do we think about authenticity in the workplace? Well, it could be the way that you communicate. I was once told that I was too ethnic because I speak with my hands. But what was interesting is the clients loved me. They thought, you're such a great storyteller. So the way that you communicate, your accent, the way that you even articulate anger, disagreement, conflict, some people will avoid it at all costs. Other people will dive right in. For me, it is authentic to convey anger. That is considered unprofessional in some settings.

If you can imagine a setting where you go in and you're direct with your supervisor or with your subordinate or your colleague and you say, listen, that was my idea in the meeting. We talked about it. Explain to me why you took credit for it. I could never imagine saying that. Right. But ask yourself why. So some of it's about personality, but I think in many professional contexts, you're going to be considered bad if you actually advocate for yourself, especially if you do that in front of the group. Right. Right. So does that help, Nicole, in terms of, because it's not just about appearance.

Right. Appearance is one of the easy, because we immediately categorize people based on appearance. Appearance is one of the, I'd say, gateways into the conversation about authenticity. And hair, some of the research I've done is something that most people can relate to, which is why. And it's actually sort of me search. I'm studying myself a little bit because I was really curious to answer some of these questions. So I wanted to talk a little bit more about anger because I think when we talk about leaders being authentic, it seems like a lot of what we talk about is we want to invite in happy feelings to the workplace. We say we want people to, you know, bring their whole selves to work. And we just really mean those parts of themselves that are shiny and happy. And we don't usually mean anger, especially for women.

I'm curious to know more of your thoughts on kind of authenticity and anger. You're absolutely right. Women experience significant backlash when they express anger in the workplace. I think Tori Breskell has done some work on that. But then Ashley Shelby Rosette and Robert Livingston and some other folks have done some research, for example, which shows that this may have to do with intersectionality because black women don't receive as much backlash as white women do when black women express anger in the workforce. And so I have never understood sort of the visceral negative reaction to anger in the workplace. Now, I'm not talking about someone being a stark, raving lunatic, going up and down the aisles, yelling at people, cursing people out, physical violence, or throwing things around. That's not what I mean. Anger means displeasure, annoyance. It's a signal that something is awry, that something is unjust. Why is it bad to express

that? Now, of course, we have to think about the way that we channel that emotion and the way that we communicate those ideas in the workplace. And I think women in particular have to be mindful of that, right? I think women who can figure out how to use their anger in a productive way may find themselves potentially at an advantage. And I guess the question I have for you, have you all been angry in the workplace? What have you done? Have you gone to your cube? Have you called or your office? Have you called your friend? Have you gone into the bathroom and cried? What have you all done? And I'd be curious to know if you all have seen examples of when anger has been successfully

used. I have some examples, but I really want to hear from you all. That's a really interesting question because you just made me think about the instances when I've been angry and when I've cried. And that certainly has happened. But there's two kinds of anger as I experienced them. One of them is the hurt anger. I can't believe you just did that to me. And that is really, really difficult for me. You know, I always sort of like question whether or not this is justified and how much of it is my fault. And I go through that sort of checklist of reasons not to deal with it, if you know what I mean. And when I have dealt with it, it's brought change that I needed. But there's another kind of anger that I have had more frequently, which is when things aren't done the way I've asked for them to be done. And I run a team and I run an operation. I'm trying to bring about change. I'm also trying not to bring about change.

I mean, I understand what I'm trying to do here. And if I believe that my requests have been countermanded, I get angry and I will say so. And I'll call people out for it, but I'll do it privately usually. If it is impeding progress for the organization, that will make me quite angry and I can be articulate about it. The other one, holy cow, I just go up in flames. What's interesting, Amy, is that when it's about you in that way, it's personal versus it's about the task. And I think we give ourselves permission. This is about the work.

So I have permission to be angry because if I don't say something, the organization suffers. And here we are as women who want to save the organization potentially. So we're willing to go to the bat for that kind of anger. But when it comes to someone who's done something unjust to us, and I would say you may be more willing to articulate your anger or we as women may be more willing to articulate our anger if someone has been unjust to someone else. So if we see, you know, someone's treating one of our subordinates unfairly. Oh, yeah. Here I am.

Very angry woman. I will get hands on hips. Head to the side. What are you doing? Right. But if they had done the same thing to us, we, for some reason, I mean, we know the reasons, right? We can get into those. We don't give ourselves permission to articulate that anger and to address the injustices that are

personal. So I've spent almost my whole career in HBR. So I don't have a lot of experiences with other company cultures my experience of our company culture is that visible displays of anger are not welcome at hbr even to the point where sometimes normal sort of healthy conflict feels like whoa that was some conflict the whole corporate culture that i've grown up with is very anti-anger which on the whole works for me because i'm a conflict avoidant person um that said I think there have been times when I have felt angry at work. I think the older I have gotten, the more I have both been willing to call it anger and also the more I've been able to kind of decide what to do with it

as opposed to just feeling it. Well, it seems related to women being expected not to show too much emotion at work and even like being passionate about something can be misinterpreted as being too emotional. I feel like that line gets put on women much more often than it gets placed on men. I also think it's connected to our fear of directness. I get called out on that occasionally. I'm looking at someone who I bet also gets called out on that occasionally, Sarah, which, and it's something I really respect in the way you communicate. But in a polite culture like ours,

being direct can be misinterpreted as being angry or being rude when all you're really trying to do is be clear because a lack of clarity, in my view, leads to all kinds of problems. Plus, I'm a New Yorker. It's in my DNA. So what are your thoughts about that? I absolutely agree. Fear of directness, a polite culture. I mean, you're still getting at this organizational cultural notions of what is and isn't professional. How you express yourself in the workplace is connected to authenticity. Amy, if you're from New York, and you're, I'm very direct, come from a very direct family. We're from the South. And people think that, you know, Southern gentility, but we're a

Black Southern family. And let me tell you, if somebody comes to the house, and they're rude, we might not say it in front of them, but we will talk about it for days. And the interesting thing is that as I grew older, I was known as the one who was direct, who was forthright. So my mother would say, go get him, Tina, go tell him what the deal is, because that was my personality. And so I absolutely think as a woman in the workplace, I have been slapped on the wrist for being too direct. But I've also tried to figure out how to work around that, right? So I look at it as I will say to someone when they come to me and ask a question,

do you want to hear the truth? Do you want to hear what I really think? Or do you want me to just say something to sort of appease the situation? If you ask me and you tell me you really want to hear what I think, I'm going to be super direct. And they know that now. People know that about me. And for some reason, people like that. culture and workplaces to where direct with kindness was valued as opposed to indirect, which doesn't necessarily have a kind intention behind it. They don't necessarily want you to understand. They don't want to hurt your feelings, but they also may not want to give you the direct

critical feedback that would help you evolve into a better employee. My background is a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant New Englander and my family is not direct. Yes. Like nothing is ever spoken directly. In fact, it makes it really hard to even make plans at the holidays because no one will just say like what they would prefer to do. I have always in the workplace struggled with how can I be indirect but clear and nice versus what feels to me like being direct and clear but mean and I think just add an exclamation point to the email right and a smiley face exactly smile we're not gonna do it that way guys no yeah so yeah dealing with that tension has always been

an issue for me Nicole I'm curious to know what your thoughts are on that. What does your family do? Background, very indirect. We're suppressors of emotion. We see that, you know, if we're sad or angry. It was not a very emotional household. And I think that I am not a super emotional person. And when I come into work, I don't consider myself very indirect, but I think I'm very polite in my emails. Asking for things can be kind of a challenge. I'm like, this will be a great idea. This is great for both of us. You are maybe the most polite person in our office. I'm very polite.

I love exclamation points. You know, I want people to feel my positive energy going to them. I think that's, you know, internalized from growing up and not really getting to be angry or getting to show, show anger or even be direct, ask for things directly. So I'm putting you on the spot, Nicole. Do you identify as Asian? From what country? Philippines. Okay. Oh, you speak Tagalog? I do. Okay. I was in Subic Bay. So my mother makes lumpia and all that. She knows

how to cook Filipino food. She's an amazing cook. So I asked Nicole if you identified as Asian because, you know, there are stereotypes and in the workplace, one of the things that's interesting. So Asian people are known as model minorities, super polite, will get the work done, focus on a task, but they're not leaders. Have you heard that stereotype before? Oh, yeah. We published research on that, too. I know. So I've seen that research and read that research and actually counseled some of my students of Asian descent. And that is something that they counter. And I guess the question is,

when you said you're not super emotional, is it that you don't feel the emotions or that you don't want to express the emotion? I feel these emotions. Not knowing how to express them or not knowing what's appropriate to express is probably a big question that I think about subconsciously. I think it is cultural. The norms of my household growing up and the expectations, the trajectory that was laid out for me is very different than the expectations and like path that I envision for myself now. You know, like trying to advance in a workplace, trying to lead and be heard. That's very different than the norms, the role I was expected to play growing up. Like, do really well in school, don't talk back, get good grades, get a good job,

don't like cause a fuss. And then that's doing good. And then now I feel very, very differently. We all have our cultural upbringing. We go into a workplace context, right? Where do we as authentic individuals reside? How do we navigate those spaces? Because if you want to express your emotion, but you feel like you don't know how to, that's one thing. But if you feel like you have to express emotion because the workplace is forcing you to do that, then that's still inauthentic. Right. But, you know, Herminia Bauer wrote this great article, The Authenticity Paradox. And one of the points she made that really resonated for me

was that when you think about authenticity, particularly someone who's closer to the beginning of her career than the end of her career, like you, Nicole, you have to try on different personas to see which one feels comfortable. Because, you know, the person who graduated from college a few years ago probably isn't going to be the one who thrives in any workplace, right? You learn, you grow, you figure it out. You bump into a few things, you find the right way forward for yourself. Does that resonate for you? Yeah. So I liked that article too. I think she said in

there, you know, you don't want to have too rigid a definition of authenticity. What I think about though, or would love to know what you all think about is what's the difference between being inauthentic and then just being pushed out of your comfort zone? Because the latter one, you do need to evolve in a workplace and as a leader. So for me, authenticity is about being your best self, right? It's not necessarily, you know, there's some research which has said, keep your authentic self at home. Nobody wants to see your authentic self. Your authentic self is nasty. Well, that's not the authentic self that I'm talking about. So it's one thing to, you know, be driving and to see someone make you angry

and you give them the finger. Some people would say that that was me being authentic, but I would say it's not. That is me being under stress, under duress. If I had time to reflect and stop and didn't allow my emotion to get away with me, I wouldn't do that because that's not what I value. That doesn't align with the values

that I authentically hold. I think a work example that was one we've talked about in a previous episode, we talked about how women can be heard more in meetings. And that included, instead of saying, well, how about this, saying, my strong recommendation is this. And one of the conversations we had is like, does that feel inauthentic when you are consciously trying to change the way that you talk in order to be heard.

But so what's interesting is, is when we encourage and counsel women to say, my strong recommendation is, are we fundamentally shifting the way that some women and men may feel more comfortable voicing their opinion? So I always, it's difficult to know because some of it is career counseling and career advice that will help women or men or everyone. Others of it really are subtle cues to conform, to speak more loudly, to speak with more declarative statements, to be more emphatic, to stand up and spread yourself out and possess the room, to really get in there and command the space. I mean, are we talking about football or are we talking about a conference room? I mean, really? So what are we talking? And so because what if you have someone who has a softer voice, who is not as who is very brilliant, but can argue both sides and can present both sides. Don't we have value at the conference table or in the workplace for that kind of voice as well?

And I think we can quickly go down a road where we're trying, we're advising women, speak in a deeper voice. You know, we hate, I don't like it when people, especially women, have that question at the end. My name is Tina. We tell, get rid of that. Speak from a deeper, but is that really necessary? If they're communicating the ideas, do they need to communicate in a particular way? But how is that different from how you dress? Getting rid of the upspeak? Is that different from dressing in a way that takes the way you look off the table in your career? Well, see, that's the question I don't know, because we're trying to figure the boundary lines, right? We're trying to figure out how can this person be authentic and excel in the workplace. And there may be some things that you, for example, I'm from the South.

I do not have much of a Southern accent unless I'm angry or if I'm really tired. And that is because my parents raised us to not have a Southern accent because they recognized that that might be inhibiting to our academic as well as career success. Should I have done that? Would I be more authentic if I still had my Southern accent, given that I was raised by two people from the South? I don't know. I was willing to give that up. I'm not willing to relax my hair, though. That's the line for me. So for some people who are speaking, when they have that lilt at the end, most of the time it's unconscious, which is why I would say it might not be as connected to their authenticity. Right. They're not even aware that they're doing that. It's a bad habit as opposed to a critical component of their authentic identity. I also wonder how much of it is generational, the way I think vocal fry is generational. Yeah, I hate it. But I think that's generational, and I wonder how much of it is about conformity to generational norms.

It is. Some of it is. And I've had to check myself because there was someone who I thought, I didn't enjoy the way that he spoke. He's an amazing entrepreneur. And then I paused and said, why am I trying to get him to speak proper English in the way that he speak? He's communicating. He's passionate.

He's articulate. He's brilliant. Why do I need him to not have that kind of accent? Yeah. I mean, I have found myself in conversations being too distracted by the fry or the up speak to pay attention. But then I sort of remind myself that it's my job to pay attention, to listen to the substance. So it takes a certain amount of discipline. I mean, it's a challenge.

So is that because we stereotype people who speak with this deeper gravelly voice, the fry, as we call it, we stereotype them as lazy, incompetent, sort of beach bum people who don't. Is that what you, I think we have to unpack that. When we have an interaction, and I would say for women who are at work, for women who are supervising other women, for men who are supervising women, when you're across from someone and you're finding yourself being distracted by something, the afro, the hand gestures, the fry in the voice, the cleavage, the lipstick, or the lack thereof, the hairstyle, ask yourself what is really happening.

Is it because this person is not comporting with your ideal professional. 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. One of the things I want to know more about is how authenticity and the expectations of authenticity are different for different women of different races. What does your research tell you about that? So I have done some research with Kathy Phillips in particular on hair in the workplace, hair penalties in particular. And the reason why I studied hair is because it's a mutable trait that you can alter, right? And it's very relevant to identity. And as a black woman in corporate America, I have been advised not to wear my hair in particular styles because the clients might not like it or et cetera, et cetera. And when we conducted our experimental research,

what we found was that Afrocentric hair, meaning hair of Afro textured hair. And I want to say also, not all women of African descent have the same texture hair. I just really want to be careful that it doesn't sound like I'm stereotyping or lumping people together. But what we found was that people with afros or dreadlocks in their hair were rated as less professional than the same images of women when they were portrayed as having straight, relaxed hair.

And that was across the board. That was by black and white people. What was interesting was that we found that while Afrocentric hair was denigrated across the board, it was most denigrated by people of African descent. There was an in-group bias that we found. And we still have to do follow-up research exactly to examine that because some people immediately said, that's because Black people hate themselves. And I was like, okay, I don't hate myself. That's not necessarily the case. There could be some kind of internalized racism, but it could also be that Black people are keenly aware of the impression

management techniques that are necessary to successfully navigate the workplace. So when we asked questions like, what advice would you give to this candidate? No one mentioned anything to the relaxed, they didn't mention hair at all to the people with straight hair. But when black people in particular were rating these black images with afros or dreadlocks, they would say things like she might need to change her hairstyle. She might need to straighten her hair. She might need to relax her hair. And I think the reason they were emphasizing that is because that's probably advice that they received both in and outside of the workplace. People have no idea how much time it takes to groom your hair. If it is naturally textured and every day you're having to figure out how to make

it straight, that's a lot of shadow work, a lot of uncompensated work that you're having to do outside of the workplace. There's a lot of thinking that goes into how I'm going to do this. Wouldn't we rather have employees who are focused on their work? And this is not to say, again, that people of African descent are distracted at work. It's just that they're having to put in extra for the same thing. And really, is it even related to the work? What does it have to do with the job? It is simply a cultural understanding of what is and is not professional. And that's what I want the takeaway to be, which is organizations really and truly need to check themselves. There have been instances, lawsuits of people being hired and then having job offers reneged upon because they wouldn't cut off their dreadlocks. I mean, really, what are we even talking about? So you're telling

me that as an organization, you're so concerned that your clientele is going to be offended by this hairstyle, that you would fire someone that you thought was highly qualified to perform this role. Now, maybe we have things like you need to be clean. But even that, believe it or not, can be debatable in terms of what is clean and what is not. We really need to wrestle with our cultural understanding of what is professional. I can hear some people saying, what do you mean being clean is debatable? Well, in certain cultures, people do not shower every day. They might shower once a week.

They come to a meeting in a place where people are accustomed to showering once or twice. They may have an odor. Are they clean? According to their culture, they are. According to our culture, they might not be. What do we expect from that individual? What's the kind of conversation that we would have around that particular example? And I don't know what the answer is, but I guess what I'm saying is it is no longer okay to just keep these things on the books without questioning them and thinking about how they affect employees. I just think about like when I got my nose pierced, my mom and I told my mom,

she almost fainted. She flipped out and she's like, you're never going to get a job with that. And my thinking was, well, I don't want to work anywhere where that's not okay. Is that a millennial attitude? I mean, I know that's kind of like a privileged attitude. I can pick where I'm going to go. But I wonder if that is been, well, I have on this pinstripe suit, but I have on yellow socks. Or I have on this tailored suit, but I have tattoos on my arm that they'll never see. Or my hair is in a bun, but really it's dreadlocks. Who knows? I mean, I think that it is human nature to rebel against conformity. I think every generation thinks that they're the most rebellious. I will agree with that. I also think that as a non-millennial by many years,

it makes me really happy that you feel comfortable coming in. I actually had forgotten that you have a pierced nose. So tiny. It is teeny. But I guess what I'm saying is that that have a pierced nose, but it is teeny. But I guess what I'm saying is that, you know, that breakthrough is not just your breakthrough. I do wonder, though, if you were a black woman with dreadlocks and a pierced nose and pink hair, if it would be acceptable. Because it's sort of like, maybe we can venture out in one or two ways, but don't come in here totally nonconformist.

That's not going to be accepted. Yeah. That's sort of a nice segue to something else I wanted to ask you about, which is a working paper that you've been working on called Shared Sisterhood, which sort of looks back at the history of, I think, specifically black and white women in the workplace. Why do that project? Why are you interested in examining that history? I'm a black woman, but also because historically in this country, those were the modalities upon which this society was based. It was black and white. And I'm interested in studying why black and white women have not made more progress as a collective in the workplace and why when I talk to, I'm having an don't trust white women, just point blank. That has to do with, I think, when you look back historically at opportunities for advancement in the workplace, statistically, white women have been in positions of power much more so than black women. There'll be a conversation. We're going to move. This organization is going to move forward. We're going to have these corporate initiatives. Who gets into the boardroom to

negotiate? It's typically white women. Leaving black women behind. And I think we have to be super honest about that and stop acting as though feminism is feminism is feminism. I have, I didn't identify as a feminist until I was an adult because of these issues, because I have felt like my issues were ignored. For example. One of the big points of feminism, second wave feminism was for women to be able to work. Well, black women have had to work outside of the home for centuries. So I don't want to wear a bra. OK, then don't wear it I mean think seriously if you think about

what the key messages were we're really clamoring for this intersectional approach Kimberly Crenshaw and Angela Davis and you know they've done some amazing work on intersectionality and I think we need to bring that into the workplace so the reason I'm doing that project is because I want to shake women and to actually women and Asian women really focus because believe it or not, we're all confronting a lot. There are some differences between white women and women of color. And maybe women of color need to unite and figure out how to advance without white women. And now I know that's going to cause some negative reaction. But let's just be very honest. You know, one of the papers I just had that came out with Laura Morgan Roberts on Black Lives Matter in the workplace was perspective taking. That's a critical skill that I think organizations need to instill in their employees. And I would ask white women, since we're talking to women, women at work, to really put yourself in the shoes of women of color and ask yourself if you'd be willing to stick with you. One of the things I've struggled with as a white feminist is I think a lot of white women assume a sisterhood with black women that black women do not feel. And I think learning that that first,

you have to learn that that's the case, right? And then you have to kind of figure out how to listen and how to take that perspective and how to find out what you don't know but see and see this is the thing that's frustrating to me because that's part of the reason another reason i'm doing the shared sisterhood papers because i hear that white women don't know that's the issue and i'm like wait a minute they should people people have heard about racism if you've heard about cancer if you get with cancer, you all of a sudden do all this research. You figure out what you should be eating, where you need to go, where the best hospitals are. You mean to tell me for centuries we've been dealing with this issue with racism and lack of feminism and you don't know that there's an issue? Yeah.

That's tired. That's played. I'm not trying to be like, well, that's my directness. But it's just, this is the conversation that people, Black women, are often having behind closed doors. I don't believe it. I do not believe that white women don't get that there's an issue. What are you doing at work? How many Black women work here at HBR and are in positions of leadership? How many articles are published by and about Black women or Latino women or women of color? Let's just look at the statistics. And we often, oh,

the pipeline's not good. That's bull. There are so many qualified, talented, more than qualified women of color who could blow the roof off this place, get y'all's membership and readership over the top. Because we, I think when you are a woman and you're a black woman in particular, you are at the intersection and you see things that other people cannot see. They're blind to it. We need our voices to be heard. And I think what's happening is we're beginning to stop asking permission. We're beginning to stop saying, listen to our voices. And we're just going to create our own platforms where we can voice our opinions there. You raised an important point about how many black women are contributing to HBR.

And I want to attempt to address that. And the answer is not enough and this is part of a bigger struggle that we are dealing with to bring in new voices and new perspectives because it's very easy for us to go to the usual suspects and we have that open channel and we are consciously dealing with that we recognize it we talk about it we're not good enough yet at it and it's not just black women. It's just getting outside the usual pool of contributors. But I want to thank you for raising it because it is an important thing for us to keep thinking about.

So you mentioned Laura Morgan Roberts. She's written a paper based on a study of black women graduates of Harvard Business School. And she found that there were three kind of attributes that they identified as critical to their success. One of them was EQ. Mm-hmm. And I wonder if you can talk a little bit about how EQ plays into these gaps you've identified and these sort of unacknowledged conflicts that must present themselves every single day. So emotional intelligence, you know, you have the self aspect. So how self-aware are you? How well do you manage yourself? And you have the social awareness and you have the social management of relationships. And what I'd say, the way that EQ

relates to this is you first have to be self-aware that you don't know, or at least that you haven't been willing to pick up the resources to identify these gaps. And then be honest enough, empathy is a big part of EQ as well. And it's connected to perspective taking, which is what I talked about a little earlier. If you have high EQ, then hopefully you can take the perspective of other long enough and set aside your own biases so that you can really understand the world and their worldview. I'm not saying that you fully understand it, but you're at least willing to acknowledge, I don't fully get this. I don't understand why they would be upset. I don't understand why Black women wouldn't want to have a sisterhood with white women. We're all sisters. I want to learn more. I want to educate. I want to become more aware of their experience. I want to educate myself. There are so many resources that are out there. Is this the kind of answer you were looking for? Because I really think, you know, it is

incumbent upon women, all of us, to educate ourselves about each other's experiences. And I do put the onus on, because white women have been in positions of power, if black women were in the positions of power, I'd be saying that black women need to do this about white women. This is about power dynamics. I mean, I think what women want is equity in the workplace, right? We want to know that if we put in eight hours, we're going to get out the same output that a man who puts in eight hours is doing if we're doing the same quality of work. Emotional intelligence enables you to be able to recognize that that is an issue and that your sister, the woman across from you, may not be seeing life the same way. The other thing I'd say, a blind spot that I have, and this is where my emotion is, is about class. So we've pretty much,

this whole conversation has been about salaried people. We don't talk about hourly wage earners at all, very much in HBR, in my research, et cetera. We talk about peoplearied people. We don't talk about hourly wage earners at all, very much in HBR, in my research, et cetera. We talk about people who are professional. And I get it. But the majority of people, many, many, many women are hourly workers. What are we doing to help them? How do we help them? They're people who are close to the poverty line. How are we helping them? They work every day. You want to talk about having to be inauthentic? I mean, one of the groups of people who is perhaps subjected to having to conform and the Me Too movement are domestic workers.

Think about that. You're going into someone else's house, someone who has money, who gives you hours. If they don't give you hours, you can't pay your bills. Sexual assault, sexual horror. I mean, let's not even begin to get into that conversation. So I think that's what emotional intelligence allows you to do a truly authentic leader? And if it is possible, is it only true for some women? I do think it's possible for women to be authentic leaders. And that is a person who is expressing themselves, who is reflected on the kind of person, the values that they want to bring to the workplace, and who is willing to offer that and share that pros and cons with the people who are following them. Now, I mean, what I'm struggling with is authentic leadership. The definition of it can shift depending upon what you're talking about. Do we mean someone who's honest and transparent? Or do we mean someone who's honest and transparent?

Or do we mean someone who is pursuing their best self? I mean, someone who was pursuing their best self, who is working to take the perspectives of the people who follow them so that they can take that into consideration when they're making decisions. I mean, someone who if I decide to wear my Afro or gesticicular, I'm going to bring all of that to the table. Yes, I think it's possible for women to be authentic and to be leaders in that way. I do not think it's necessarily limited to certain kinds of women. I do think it's harder for women. The less power you have, I think the more challenging it can be to be authentic, period. If you're a person, as we just mentioned before, who is an hourly worker, who is really dependent upon your employer, if they tell you to wear an apron

and straighten your hair, you may be more inclined to do that than if you're the CEO of an organization. So I think we have to be sensitive to the fact that it's not as easy for everyone. And I think power, again, rears its ugly head, or maybe it's not ugly, it just rears its head and impacts women and men's ability to be authentic in the workplace and authentic leaders. Tina, thank you for coming in. Yeah, this was great. Thank you. Thank you all for having me. Candice Morgan used to work for a global nonprofit whose mission was to improve work for women. But she left in January of 2016 to join Pinterest as their head of inclusion and diversity. When she got to

Silicon Valley, she started wondering whether her style was too corporate for the tech industry. So I had a lot of questions myself in terms of, you know, is the way that I currently present myself at work going to transfer in my new environment? As an expert in identity and interpersonal relationships, she knew what that feeling was. That new employee fear of not fitting in. It's called belonging uncertainty. We often find in tech that women have higher belonging uncertainty in the first few weeks of their new job than men. Part of their belonging uncertainty can come from being underrepresented. That's why she's helping the company improve its diversity rates.

But she says that the culture she's pushing for has to go beyond hiring more female engineers and people from underrepresented ethnic groups. So I asked Candice to tell me more about what she's doing to promote authenticity at Pinterest, particularly for women. First, I mentioned that belonging uncertainty that people often feel in the beginning. And by the way, that's a pretty universal feeling. So even though we find that women are more likely to report belonging uncertainty, men experience it too. Anytime, whether it's your first job or your 10th job, you're going to wonder if you share the values of the organization around you. And so we actually, within people's first week in the company, as part of their orientation, have a couple of times that we highlight belonging uncertainty and we normalize it. So we have a session on unconscious bias that's usually on your fourth or so day at the company. And in that, we introduce how to create feelings of belonging more broadly.

And we acknowledge to the people around the table that, you know, perhaps you are feeling some uncertainty and that's okay. Imposter syndrome, feelings like that are completely validated and normal. Another way that we think about being authentic, though, is certainly the evaluation process, the performance review process. And so we want to make sure that people of different styles have a fair shot at becoming a leader and having their accomplishments recognized. And when we evaluate people, that's when we can see the most variation in terms of people wondering, do I need to be a certain type of person to be successful at this company? And so one way that my team designed a way to mitigate the potential effects of things like style. So whether you're an introvert or an extrovert impacting your ability to be successful, as we created

within that performance discussion, a moment where we actually talk about potential biases. We talk about, for example, types of words that tend to be used differently. For example, based on gender, helpful can be something that people view differently. If a woman is helpful, it's expected. If a man is helpful, it could be seen as an extra, something special about that individual, even though they're demonstrating the same behavior. And that goes back to gender stereotypes. And so we call out those words as people are talking about performance. Similarly, aggressive, that word can be viewed very differently, not only along gender lines, but along racial lines. And so we call that out and say, you know, if we're giving feedback, especially if it's stylistic feedback, is that feedback

actually valid? And so that being part of every discussion allows people with different styles to be themselves. So another thing I wanted to ask you about is, you know, one way that women can be authentic at work, one way that women can be themselves is letting them be mothers at work. What is Pinterest's parental leave policy? So we have a leave policy of 16 weeks for parents. After that four months that you're out, your fifth month is actually a transition month. So you gradually come back to work. So working just a couple of days a week until you're fully back on board. One thing that I'm proud of is that we also have embraced different types of families. And so we had an employee who with his partner was looking for a surrogate and that's a very,

very costly process. And so we added a generous benefit in terms of surrogacy and adoption benefits. So surrogacy benefits up to $20,000 post-tax so that people can invest in their families. And then this year we added egg freezing and additional family resources to show that your family is an important part of your life and your community. So one of the things you're focusing on now

is how to train managers to be more inclusive. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you're doing with managers specifically? Yes. So we did an internal study where we looked at our managers and we tried to understand managers that were scoring the highest as rated by their employees in terms of inclusion. So we looked at a number of things around, you know, my manager values my ideas, even if they are different from their own. That's something that we measure employees on as part of inclusion and diversity. And so managers that were scoring exceptionally high on a number of areas, we interviewed them. And we also looked at a match sample of managers that were getting very average scores.

And we tried to understand what the differences were. And so there were a number of things that those exceptionally inclusive managers were doing. They were more humble, they're more willing to admit their mistakes. And that creates a safety in risk taking and a safety in being able to grow and learn and make a prediction or make a mistake that doesn't pan out and come back from it. Those managers spent more time soliciting feedback from their employees around what they actually want to work on and tried to find ways to give some part of their passions to them as part of their roles. They invested more in structured socializing and making sure that that socializing is inclusive so that it's not after work with a beer, but,

you know, much more broad and intentional. So these exceptionally inclusive managers just did these things naturally. They had a humility to them. And this takes me back to this theme of being authentic, because if you can admit your mistakes, you signal a type of trust and authenticity to your employees. So what we did was decide to create a playbook based on those inclusive behaviors. And we now have all new managers go through this inclusive manager training and have that playbook as a resource. So it sounds like, you know, by training managers to be more aware of themselves and to be more authentic themselves, that helps employees also feel like they can be their real selves at

work. Yes. And, you know, sometimes leaders will ask, you know, what's the most important thing that I can do? And it's that very same characteristic. It's modeling that authenticity. It's being able to talk about times you made a wrong call, what you learned from it, and then that encourages other employees to do the same. You know, one thing that always comes up when we talk about women in tech is this issue of a leaky pipeline. So how women tend to leave the field at each career stage and especially at the higher levels. But 45% of Pinterest's workforce are women. So what are you doing to keep these female employees engaged? One of the things we do is we actually look at retention. So in terms of a metric and in terms of an outcome, we compare the retention rates of women, of certain

underrepresented ethnic minority groups. Even across things like age, we look at retention to see if there are gaps or differentials. But by the time you're looking at that metric, you're quite far down the line. And so what are the things that engage people the most? Well, interestingly enough, it goes back to belonging. So we added an element to our employee survey around I feel like I belong at Pinterest. And it turns out the way people respond to that question is one of the biggest indicators of their engagement at the company. So have you figured out the women and authenticity question in your own life then? I think it's a work in progress, if I'm being honest.

I mean, I think I feel that on a very local level, there are small ways all the time that I'm being more authentic than I ever have been at work. So, for example, even in my personal style, I mean, I'm certainly working in a more casual work environment. I am a huge fan of natural hairstyles, although my execution isn't always perfect. And so I'm finding myself experimenting with different hair hairstyles at work. And that's actually really powerful because recently a woman joined a team adjacent to me who also has natural hair and had previously worked in an environment where she didn't feel she could wear her hair natural. So I think even those small things are part of

being authentic. Thinking about code switching at work, being able to speak in different types of vernaculars and that being okay. I'm seeing more of that happen. For me personally, I'm also a very warm personality. I'm smiley and not everyone has that personality and that's absolutely fine. I kind of love working with different personalities, but I think I used to cover a little bit of that in order to be effective. And I find that I can be effective either way. Candice, thank you so much for taking time to talk with us today. Absolutely. It's been my pleasure. So Amy, Sarah, when I got off the phone with Candice, I couldn't help but think about this idea of belonging uncertainty, how it's something everyone experiences when they join a company for the first time. And I thought about

when I started at HBR, I definitely felt that fear of whether I would fit in or not. I moved here from New York. I was much younger than like many people that I was going to be working with. I was the youngest person on my team. I used to wear like crazy trousers all the time at work. And like I got here and there were no crazy trousers. So I stopped doing that. Oh, no. I'm sorry to interrupt. I miss your crazy trousers. I love them.

So it was just something that I was thinking about because as, you know, many women at work, like this sense of do I belong here in this organization definitely struck a chord for me. And I was wondering if either of you have had that experience and what you did to get more comfortable. Never, ever. No, I have had it everywhere I've ever worked, and that's been a lot of places. And when I joined HBR, I came in as the editor, and I had that kind of blinding moment of panic. Oh my God, what if they don't like me? What if I don't fit in? What if this is a terrible mistake? And then I realized it was an act of will to make sure that didn't happen. So much of what goes on in that moment is a feeling of desperation, please like me. And there's very little to like about please like me and desperation and that's

the act of will is just sort of finding a way to put that out of your head and bring yourself you know your best self to work and figure out who that is i remember sitting at you'll remember i don't know if you remember this sarah this was a big moment for me. So it's my first day. And Adi, our boss, sort of calls this big meeting. And I walk into the biggest conference room in the office. And I am introduced to, it seemed like about 90 people. And they were all named Sarah or Jeff. That's how it seemed to me.

And Adi sort of interviewed me. And there was a moment when I thought, I don't even remember my name. And then I just, again, I had to find a way to put that out of my brain and just be there. It's just sort of shutting down that stupid voice in your head that tells you you're not good enough, you're not worthy. Tell that jerk to shut up and be yourself. And that has always worked for me. I've always felt super at home in this organization. And maybe that's also why I've been here for so long. But

and there have been other times when maybe I have been sort of put on notice that I don't belong. Before I joined HBR, I was a sports writer and I was one of a few lady sports writers in Boston. And there were lots of people who were totally willing to tell me that I did not belong. And I just thought, well, those people are full of it, you know, and they'd write me profane emails and I'd write them back an email saying, you know, you kiss your mother with that mouth. And I, you know, like, so I guess I, I don't know. I feel like it's a mark of my privilege to say, like, while there have been times I have

been sometimes daunted by the challenges, I don't feel like I have looked around and sort of wondered if I belong at this company. But you have the gift of not believing all the negative stuff that comes your way. And a lot of people don't have that. I believe the negative stuff I tell myself about myself, but I have a very good gift at not believing the crappy things other people say to me about myself. Do not underestimate the value of that gift. Yeah. That's huge. So I've been here for four years now and I'm less worried about, you know, whether I fit in or not. But I started thinking more about this other inflection point that Candice touched

on, which is you're starting to worry less about fitting in and you're thinking more about, do I stand out enough to be a leader to get to the next level of my career? Is this like a point that either of you have experienced? So I remember when someone first said to me something about my executive presence and I, you know, I just started laughing. I thought that was such a weird idea. And then I kind of understood what she was talking about. You've sort of been elevated recently. Did you find that you got a really nice promotion? Yes, I got a really awesome promotion. I don't know why I made a terrible face when he was like, you've been elevated. I was like, no, I'm not better than anyone else. But, you know, I mean, I did get a nice promotion, which is great. Part of the reason I think part of what part of the package that Sarah Green Carmichael is that you show up. You are a strong presence. You have great ideas. You make them heard. You're impossible to ignore. And I think that's part of what we're talking about here. And that's something that,

at least in my experience, you have to grow into. Yeah, I guess I almost feel like there's an arc here, right? And in the beginning, you worry about fitting in and blending in. And then you realize that you have to stand out to some degree to get the credit for your work, to make sure that people see you as someone with the potential to be in a leadership role. But then once you're in the leadership role, you almost have to kind of go back to not necessarily blending in because now

you can't. Yeah. But you have to worry more about making it safe for other people to speak, to giving credit to the right people and to sort of standing back. This is something I worry about now more in meetings is, am I talking too much? Am I controlling the meeting too much when really what I should be doing is asking questions and pulling more people in? And as a manager, if I knew that you were worried about fitting in, I would start working to create an environment where you didn't ever even worry about that, where you would feel that your differences were a credit to you. So to me, that says something more about the environment than it says about you. So I do think it's important to talk about how managers can make more authentic, inclusive workplaces. But I also feel like despite our best efforts at HBR,

there are still lots of bad bosses out there. Do we have to be given authenticity from on high or is there a way that we can claim it for ourselves no you bring your authenticity it's not the gift that someone gives you it's the thing you develop in yourself and it's an act of will as i was saying before i think that it's in your moral compass somewhere that you have to understand what you stand for and make sure that that compass is guiding you. That's what authenticity is to me. Yeah.

And I think also being authentic means for me also being open about what I still need to learn. That's such a great point. And I think one way to handle that is instead of writhing, you know, in the agony of what you don't know, figure out what to learn and go, go talk to your boss. Yeah. Say here, I realize there's a lot I have to learn here. I'm thinking of starting with this. What do you think? Get some feedback and get some guidance. Yeah. I think one of the things that I've said to myself in those moments to keep me focused on learning is instead of saying in a moment when I don't really feel like myself, like, oh, this just isn't me. I try to say this just isn't me yet. And that keeps me focused on like I am focusing on getting better, not I'm being perfect.

That's our show. I'm Amy Bernstein and my co-hosts are Sarah Green Carmichael and Nicole Torres. Our producer is Amanda Kersey. Our audio product manager is Adam Buchholz. Kurt Nickish is our consulting editor and Maureen Hoke is our supervising editor. Thank you to everyone who emailed us with your stories and comments. We sit down together to read your emails and respond. It's wonderful to learn that you're sharing our conversations with each other. If you haven't written us yet, our email is womenatwork, that's one word, at hbr.org. Another thing, we're working on an episode about the advice women get about work. What we'd really like is for you to email us short voice memos telling us about the advice that's changed your

life or outlook. We'll pick out pieces of advice to play during that episode. Let us know in your message if we can use your name or not. Talk to you next time.