It’s just good Leadership isn’t it

I was leading a workshop a couple of weeks ago (How to be a First Class FeMANist in fact) and we were talking about, amongst other things, The Meeting. We discussed how important meetings are, because they are often the key place where we and are work are seen, heard and judged. And we talked, inevitably, about how meetings where there is a male dominant culture (ie, most) are a very tough place for women to thrive: any woman who has ever been in a meeting will tell you she is consistently interrupted and her input is often not heard, and then repeated later as if she had never said it. And we discussed how important that is, because if a woman struggles to thrive in The Meeting she is going to struggle to thrive in the workplace and in her career (even if she is absolutely brilliant at her job).

So we were talking about how men can do much better in meetings - for example ensuring there is a Chair, that everyone gets a chance (and breathing space) to share their thoughts, that interrupting someone mid point is not tolerated and the person is given back the floor to continue if it happens. And then one of the participants simply said this:

‘It’s just good leadership isn’t it.’

And the room was silent. Because he was so absolutely, simply right. There it is, right there. Or, to put it another way, not listening to and leveraging the diversity in the room is just BAD leadership. If you’re not doing this well, I’m sorry to break it to you, but you’re a bad leader.

So I wanted to share this simple, powerful thought from this intelligent man, because I’m sure there are a lot of men out there who think you’re great business leaders and who think that focusing on driving equality & diversity is a nice to do on the side. But in reality it’s a key part of your core work as a leader, because the best leaders are the ones who fully leverage their people - and that means all their people, not just their men.

It’s just good leadership isn’t it.