During Women’s History Month, it is important to celebrate the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. This month also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity. Many of the unique challenges women have traditionally faced when seeking to advance to senior levels appear to remain.
In the quest to advance women, MIT Sloan Professor Fiona Murray and Senior Lecturer Elsbeth Johnson, co-faculty of the Women's Leadership Program, advocate for a critical shift towards embracing power. Women often excel in influence and communication, yet may shy away from seeking power directly. This hesitation can hinder progress towards senior executive roles, despite exceptional expertise across fields like science, law, or finance. The challenge is to normalize the pursuit of power among women, encouraging them to step forward and claim their place at the decision-making table. Murray and Johnson offer six approaches to help aspiring women leaders address these challenges and break through the glass ceiling—once and for all.
“It’s OK for us to say we want to get our hands on power, because we know we can make a difference once we’ve got it.”
Step up to power
Key to overcoming the unique challenges that women leaders face is a focus on power. Leadership gender parity remains elusive because people in power (largely men) tend not to want to give up power, and when considering succession—due to human nature’s affinity bias—look to self-replicate. Johnson and Murray have found that virtually all current leadership courses for women emphasize acquiring skills of influence and persuasion. This is not enough, argues Johnson. “Influence is power’s poor relation—it’s what you do when you don’t have power.” Women are often already good influencers and communicators, yet are uncomfortable with the idea of taking power. The important step is to get comfortable, be ready for positions of power, and know how to take power.
Change the power mindset
Many high-achieving professional women with exceptional expertise, who could or should be stepping up to senior executive roles, hesitate or meet barriers. First, it is important they feel it is OK to say, ‘I want power.’ Power for a purpose, to achieve things—not just positional power over people. “It’s OK for us to say we want to get our hands on power, because we know we can make a difference once we’ve got it,” says Murray.
Secondly, they must realize that their work, however exceptional it has been, is not sufficient. It will not speak for itself. To advance, women need to be noticed, to be at the table, and not to undersell their work. There is an important performative element to leadership and this needs to come to the fore.
Play the power game
For women who think playing the power game is perhaps too ‘icky’ or too political, it helps to consider the cost of not attaining power. Positional power is a zero-sum game. By refusing to play you are ceding power to people who are often less capable, maybe power-crazed, and certainly with a different purpose or agenda to yours. To find the energy, commitment and patience needed to pursue power, “think about the impact you want to have and why you’re the right person to lead that change effort. That way, you’re not just talking about yourself; you’re talking about the journey you want to take with your team and for your organization — all of which can be energizing and doesn’t have to be an either-or situation,” says Murray.
Change the organization—one step at a time
Organizations need to change, yet it can be easy to be overwhelmed by the task. It helps to start at the thin end of the wedge and look for areas where the organization can begin to make a difference—be that in development and mentoring, recruitment policies, or approaches to performance appraisals. It is also important to find male and female allies keen and able to push for the structural and procedural changes required to make the organization more supportive of aspiring women leaders. Always remember that, while change will be good for women, it will also be good for the organization.
Build a network of advocates
To step up to senior roles, women leaders must go beyond having a professional network of people who give energy and share ideas. They need senior influential allies who will advocate on their behalf. “You need other people to advocate and to say, ‘This is the person who should be put into this role,’” says Murray.
Building an effective network of advocates takes effort. As with building any professional network, it is more difficult for women than for men. As a rule, the overlap between a woman’s personal networks and her professional network is smaller than the overlap for a man—who will tend to play sports, go out for drinks, and socialize more with people from work.
Show up authentically
Authenticity is a prerequisite for good leadership, though the much-touted phrase ‘bring your whole self to work’ is misleading. It is important that the relevant parts of ourselves we bring to work are open, trustworthy, and reflective of our true values. Showing up authentically is a skill that requires practice. Traditional leadership constructs such as charisma and gravitas are largely based on male traits. Women should find their own versions of these terms that they are comfortable with.
For women aiming for leadership roles, the path involves a nuanced strategy of embracing power, advocating for organizational change, building strategic networks, and leading authentically. This multifaceted approach not only paves the way for individual women to achieve leadership positions but also contributes to the broader goal of creating more inclusive and effective organizations.
Once you reach a position of power, it’s important to support others in your organization, remind Murray and Johnson. This means amplifying quieter voices in a meeting or giving credit for an idea that initially didn’t get traction. It also means encouraging autonomy and letting people do their jobs.
“It’s all about leaders needing to step up and be really clear about what’s expected of people, so that they can then step back and let those other people make decisions and do the work that they ought to be doing,” says Johnson.
Ready to claim the power you deserve? Learn more about the Women's Leadership Program, a four-day learning journey on the MIT campus, offered June 24–27. This course welcomes driven, professional women in mid- to senior-level positions from around the world.