JetUNsetter

Was catching up with a dear friend. She is a mother of two. Her boy is about 10 and the her daughter 3. Soon after her daughter was born she started an MBA at a prestigious school. Amidst the diapers, the sleepless nights, the other kid going through its own phases, a full time job and a husband she graduated with distinction! She now has the MBA, a happy family and her full time job.

She is thinking of making the next step in her career now and capitalise the MBA. She is going through interviews. Men at those interviews ask her about her management skills or people management skills. The interviewees flip through the pages of her CV for the signs that she can actually do it… Sad… It’s really sad. It used to make me mad but it is actually sad. A person who can manage a family, hire and fire nannies and cleaners, procure the family pantry, get dinner on the table every single night with pressing consistency, stellar at a demanding highly academic degree, keeping a full time job that calls diligence and carries responsibility of its own, still needs to offer details of some corporate project she managed recently or rely on her corporate title to prove the obvious: she is actually doing already what the CEO in that corporate does but she needs to settle for whatever position is open for the interview she is wasting her time on!

The issue is that the interview is managed by someone who has never been in her position. His only achievement was probably that corporate project….

Women with the skills, proven worth, resilience, grit and stamina are not even in the corporate board rooms. Corporate needs speed, skill, ambition and, yes, exceptional management skills and those who obviously have them are kept out of the board rooms! These rooms are filled instead (OK not always) with testosterone (the reply to fear) and not with real skill. Women are usually perceived as soft and emotional for what the corporate needs (they might be afraid to fire people they say) and women like my friend not only have hired and fired dozens of cleaners and nannies but they are managing and delegating authority for something a lot more delicate by the way than money: a kid. A vulnerable, helpless kid. They are trusted to manage the most sensitive creature of the planet and the most sensitive asset: our collective future, BUT they might not be good enough to manage someone’s profit?? It is the women who are perceived as soft and emotional when women sustain pain and a reminder of death every 28 days! Whilst, thank God corporate men have what it takes: lots of testosterone, their fear. Not all men are like that, don’t get me wrong. There are stellar, wonderful men out there. And possibly, and altogether funnily, they are not in the boardrooms either. The issue is not men vs women. Not all women are like my friend and not all men are fearful bad manager. But I have met so many fearful bad managers, there are so many really bad corporates out there managed by fear. An emotion. Instilled, responded to and carried forward by men but it is women who are emotional ….

Let’s at least find another argument to keep worthy women out of the boardrooms. Please.

Let’s give corporate the chance to flourish, be the place where talent flourishes and huge profit is generated as a result of that and let’s leave fear in our ancestors’ caves…

I wish my friend comes across the right panel of men and women interviewers who will see immediately her worth and to all corporate women and men out there, I wish we start realising that fear is an emotion, that should not lead us. Instead, it should be a real vision, real skill employed by resilient, confident people that we trust with our daily 9-5pm parrt of our lives…

Do help me make sense of this one…