Gender equity - Sarah Poet

The one thing making your workplace gender issues worse. And what you can do about it.

The imprints of trauma, no matter where or when it occurred in someone’s life, don’t shut themselves off when someone goes to work.

I want to spin a little bit of psychology with a little bit of a new perspective so that we can actually take a different approach to addressing workplace gender issues.

This type of approach is much more effective, cost effective, and compassionate than HR practices adopted to date which try to isolate gender issues to whether or not sexual discrimination laws were broken.

When something happens at work that involves a gender topic or concern, the standard practice has been to get all judicial about things. But when we do that, the WHOLE human isn’t cared for, and the root of the issues persist.

People continually walk away from gender-related issues at work feeling hurt, isolated, misunderstood, punished, and the truest issues unresolved.

So here it is –

The greatest unnamed issue in gender-related concerns in the workplace:

Trauma projections. Aka – what’s already under the surface, waiting to trip us up.

Trauma imprints live in all of us, and they are often related to gender in a power-dominant culture. In a culture where some had power and others didn’t, that means that traumas were rampant. That’s just the truth.

People have experienced traumas, traumas live inside the somatic / body system and deep in the subconscious brain of the person, and people go to work.

The imprints of trauma, no matter where or when it occurred in someone’s life, don’t shut themselves off when someone goes to work.

Trauma projections are also very unconscious. People often don’t have any idea that they are taking the old effects of trauma and putting it onto a new person or situation.

I’ll give you an example of how I did this in my education career, because I always believe in honesty. I have learned and share from my lived experience, and I have no shame in that. It’s part of my superpower of being able to go to the tough places with people to help to truly transform the root of the issues.

I had had previous unsafe situations in my life with males in positions of authority, and so years ago when a male boss acted with authority in a dominating way, I projected that he was being dangerous. This feeling was very real to me, and may indeed have had merit in the situation. This traumatic response in me affected what I thought of him and then also how I behaved toward him and work. It amplified the “gender issue,” and even though there was a real and present-moment issue, there was also stuff from my past that amplified the trauma of the present moment. When I reported it, all of those reactions were a part of what I reported.

So our experiences of the past, related to gender in an old-paradigm of power and domination, impact our present moment experiences. This is happening, it’s very understandable, and it is not cause to dismiss a current issue as irrelevant and it is also not fair or effective to involve the past in the present.

How does a workplace even begin to consider making space for this when the point of a workplace is said to be things like effectiveness, efficiency, and profit?

You of course provide benefits for mental health, as a minimum. Support people in the whole of who they are and see workplace effectiveness improve. However, don’t stop there.
Get innovative with your responses when issues arise. Develop your mechanisms for care and connection, which will help to diffuse a trauma response if there is one. You can also provide opportunities for coaching and mediation with employees involved in “disputes,” which can save in turnover and treat people with a deeper level of honor, letting them know that you value the whole of their experience and care about them. Be careful not to punish employees for what may actually be a trauma projection. Instead, become trauma-informed.
Check your workplace fear-meter of how nervous you are that a gender-related issue will be reported. Is your leadership on edge? Schedule a call to talk with me or another DEI representative today if so. Without a doubt, if leadership holds onto fear or avoids the issue, a major event is bound to happen. If the fear-meter is high, the response to the inevitable situation will be to seek to immediately suppress it, which is not your highest potential. Innovation starts in leadership getting curious about themselves and how to increase a sense of safety throughout the organization.
Get real about your own gender-related traumas of the past. What stories and fears do you carry? How does that affect your behavior at work? Do you ignore, attempt to avoid, attempt to persuade, or have a tendency to fight? These are subtle, but the unconscious will rule your life until you bring it to light.
If you are an HR firm, consider consulting with me to bring a new lens to your scope of services. The way that we have addressed gender and sexual discrimination in HR has been very limited, in my opinion, and a more holistic approach and understanding will make your firm more competitive as the workplace continues to innovate.

My services can certainly allow your employees to get the support that they need, so that they can go back to work, and so that they can feel more altogether supported – because you care.

www . SarahPoet . com / reconciliation

Please refer my services to those in your network and I thank you for doing so.

I love being of support where it matters most, and where few others can effectively go.

#embodiedbreath #genderequity #genderequality #mediation #dei #inclusion #hr #hrsolutions #innovation #gender #masculinefeminine

The real gender issues at work won’t look like gender issues.

So if companies are willing to innovate, and willing to realize, like we do in #DEI, that everyone has a bias, then we can start to talk about masculine and feminine characteristics and behaviors – not genders, we pivot the gender conversation – and take the conversation and #awareness to a whole new level.

The real gender issues at work won’t look like gender issues.

There are gender issues, because these are the times we’re living in, but someone’s found a way to justify decisions, to quote the data, and prove that all of the boxes have been checked – in order to put a lot of energy into holding up a pronouncement that “There are no gender issues going on here!”

You will know that there are #gender issues at work when you look at the rate of true #satisfaction of the people, especially the #women and gender non-conforming people.

We are still in an age where a lot of adult white males are busy leading #hierarchies, checking boxes, and saying, “We do not have a problem here.” This is more than we’d like to think, and it’s happening for understandable reasons, like our culture pressured men to feel they could always have the answers, and handle any problem.

There are also a lot of men emerging that want to do it differently, namely younger men and men who have gone through psycho-spiritual awakenings.

If the true essence about the feeling at work is not a good one, for anyone, you have a gender issue.

And no amount of checking #HR boxes is going to “solve” this. No amount of #denial and hierarchical proclamation will white wash the situation. It’s very easy at this point for people to see through that. They probably try to speak to it, and when they’re ignored, or it is explained to them how they are wrong, they often quit, if they’re not gotten rid of first.

Handling this requires a new and different approach – one that is relational and innovative. It requires companies who actually want to lead progress to get real about the unspoken or undefined gender issues.

Going to layer deeper, gender issues are, at the root, a discrimination of #feminine energy. Because if a woman uses #masculine #energy at work, she’s actually rewarded and can get by quite alright. This is how women were historically able to win positions of power – by adopting masculine work traits. The other polarity that women experience in the workplace is to stay quiet and more docile to keep the job. Both of these are ways that women behave in a #patriarchal workforce, both of which women are growing tired of and is why you see them #quitting .

Culturally, we don’t have the words for it yet – but we want to be able to bring the archetypal feminine to work.

I was recently talking with a male client of mine who has a multi-million dollar business. He told me that he recognized that to hire women put his business at a competitive #advantage. Not only does he hire them, he knows that to genuinely listen to them, to let them share their wisdom, and come up with a new ideas, is the reason his business is outshining competitors.

He acknowledged that he sees the resistance in others to listening to women, and it is costing his competitors. Hiring innovative women, and him getting behind their ideas, has taken his business to a whole new level.

Because he understands a bit about masculine and feminine through our work together, he was able to see that the competitive advantage was feminine energy, which is inherently creational, intuitive, and relational.

This is what the traditional workplace has been missing. And it is the very thing that some companies are denying the need to look at, while other companies are pulling ahead because they’re not just putting women into positions of influence, but then they are allowing the entire body of wisdom – intuition and all – within that woman to influence decision making in the company.

Wow! Of COURSE this is where our world should be progressing right now. Why all the discomfort and resistance?? We have to let go of what is not working to advance to where the world is progressing.

It’s going that direction, and companies can innovate with feminine / masculine understanding and incorporation for #holistic development – or not, and be left behind.

My client was happy to watch his company be more successful, and his clients more happy because of the magic that these women brought. He is someone willing to innovate and get out of his own way. Are you?

For workplace consultations, leadership team development, and systems consulting, see www . SarahPoet . com / Reconciliation and book a call today.

Know someone who needs to see this? Thanks for sharing.

#genderequity #masculinefeminine #leadership #innovation #consulting #deiconsultant #hrinnovations #newparadigm #business #thoughtleadership

How you can make feminine leadership more sustainable for women.

Just because women are in positions of leadership does not equate to the return of sustainable feminine leadership or respect for feminine qualities. True feminine leadership happens when we rebalance the inequitability of feminine & masculine in our actions, efforts, and energetics, and ensure the sustainability of systems, including the women themselves.

Last spring, as the new leaves were returning to the trees and the ferns were unfurling, I visited a year-one school startup to consult with the two women who were running it.

The ideas for the school were all about innovation, keeping children close to nature, and preserving the ideals of curiosity, self sovereignty, and relationship. The school was beautifully visioned and the positive response from the community had made for fast growth. And these women leaders were exhausted.

They were working incredibly long hours and the school had not yet met financial goals, which meant that it was running at a deficit. In response, to take care of the children and the vision, they worked harder. Of course they did. It’s what women visionaries do.

They were trying to get it to go, powering through, even despite not getting paid because they were paying the teachers first. And I was there as a school consultant, yes, but also a systems analyst, a women’s leadership guide, and as someone who connects land/vision/people together when there is a mission at work. In other words, I’m looking at systems, including the energetic flow in the system as a whole. Where is it leaking energy? Where is there an area that is out of integrity with the flow of the entire system of the mission?

And so I asked them, “Are you okay running this school if it requires that the school be run on feminine depletion? You are looking at creating a holistic school model, but what of your model is requiring the feminine to continue to run on depleted resources and energy?”

I heard back from them recently, a full half a year later, and the administrator told me, “There is not a day that goes by that I do not ask myself that question. It was the greatest guiding question I’ve received.”

You see, our systems have historically run on feminine depletion.

What do I mean by that? In short, I mean that in a patriarchal way of building and operating, we over-rely on masculine energetics: build, push, create, exert, make happen. And when we stay in that energetic for too long, we create an imbalance, which forces the feminine energetic to go into submission (getting what it can where it can, like 6 hours of sleep, a little exposure, or a little congratulatory high five now and again) or it’s just forgotten about altogether (which we’ve seen in our modern workplaces in the quest for more profit, more wins.)

When the feminine is depleted, we get women who over-give, women with hormonal disorders and weird health symptoms, the pushing down of things like intuition and taking time for an idea to gestate, and the unrealistic expectation that we are able to stay continually in go-mode.

But this of course doesn’t only affect women. It affects men in that they resist vulnerability or not having an answer, always wanting to maintain the image that everything is under control. And it has affected our ideas of leadership across the globe.

You can also begin to deduce from my simple examples here that it is not a gendered issue, and we’d be well served to move beyond the typical conversations of gender in the workplace and include instead these considerations of what healthy and unhealthy feminine and masculine leadership look like, and how they are expressed.

Historically, we’ve made “women’s leadership” and “feminine leadership” synonymous, and I want to state explicitly that they are not. Just because a woman is in a position of leadership does not mean that she is enacting feminine principles in the least. Even to write that, I can imagine that some readers may bristle at the word “feminine” being inserted into a conversation about leadership because the stigma is still that the feminine can’t lead for it’s “softness.”

But I will tell you that when we look at some of the most innovative research and actions taking place in the field of leadership, what is happening is the re-incorporation of the feminine archetype and feminine leadership behaviors. To name a few: shared decision making, collaboration, flexible scheduling, and allowing teams extended periods of time to create. All of these are aspects of feminine leadership whether we call it that or not.

Then why name it? Why name it as feminine or masculine? I strongly believe that in doing so, we can save a lot of time with a conceptual framework that also reduces many of the unspoken and tricky issues that are chalked up to gender in the workplace. It’s not differences in gender that are most important. What is most important is whether or not leaders value and know how to lead, incorporating both feminine and masculine leadership qualities, and whether they extend that to their cultures and teams.

Going back to the two women that I was coaching, as I asked them this question, “Are you okay with this place running on feminine depletion?,” they had already had an understanding of feminine and masculine, and so when I asked it, the real and deeper issue became more clear.

In trying to do the right thing, they were exhausting themselves and also running on exhausted financial resources. We can see that such a situation is unsustainable. And it is in the reconstructing of both the finances and the activities of the school into an equitable feminine / masculine collaboration that both of these issues can be corrected.

A world that didn’t value the feminine was also the world that created a very serious deficit in environmental sustainability. The two go hand in hand and this topic could be elaborated on quite extensively. And so for today, I’ll conclude that feminine leadership, which I would encourage all leaders to embrace regardless of gender, would not allow for the depletion of the feminine energetic, the earth, the resources, or the people. Often in our quest for power and profit, these are the very things that are depleted and overlooked. Women and men, and leaders of all kinds, it’s time for true thriving to include the wellness and sustainability of the feminine and masculine in harmony.

Sarah Poet is available for consultations with leaders of any gender and maintains an eye to the energetic efficiency of systems as we create a more sustainable and equitable world. To schedule, visit www.sarahpoet.com/book.

THREE ORGANIZATIONAL VALUES THAT HELP MITIGATE GENDER BIAS

Post originally published in Equity Over Everything Magazine Oct 2021

Have you ever been in that awkward work situation at work where you thought, “This has more to do with gender than anyone here is willing to admit!?” You may be unsure how to bring up the issues you see, exactly what to say, or what will happen if you do speak up.

If so, you’re not alone.

We are in a post-#metoo era, with trans and non-binary identities on the rise, and issue of gender is only sure to get more interesting in the coming years. Organizations will need to innovate their value and skill sets in order to meet what is coming.

Whether or not women earn equal pay is no longer the extent of gender equity conversation. In my opinion, we need to talk about the complex pressures and stereotypes put on men just as much as we need to talk about women’s rights.

All people need safe spaces to voice concerns and have innovative conversations without the fear of losing their job for speaking out. HR is often the place where gender equity concerns get funneled, and often attempts to mitigate risk and avoid sexual harassment claims end badly.

I actually had this happen, personally. I took a legitimate concern to HR and it was handled very poorly.

As the only female member of a leadership team, women in the organization were coming to me to express their sense that there was gender bias against women. I had also experienced strange events such as when I was publicly shamed and made to apologize to a male employee. While the company handbook never would have condoned outright bias, women, myself included, were noticing some evidence of bias.

I decided to address the issues so that we could improve the organization. When I formally brought these concerns forward, there was never a direct conversation. I was funneled quickly to HR, offered a severance package, and asked not to speak to anyone.

It was scary for me, and years later, I see now that it was very scary for the organization as well. Well-intended people were afraid, and they chose to get me out the door instead of having an authentic and vulnerable conversation. As Brené Brown says in Dare To Lead, they didn’t know how to “rumble with vulnerability.”

Unfortunately, I don’t believe my situation is unique. I heard of another example just last week. I share here in order to highlight the need for a different way, beyond the standard, non-relational HR attempts at mitigating employee concern as liability. Such concerns are actually an invitation for an organization to evolve and meet the changing and diverse needs of these times.

I am passionate about innovative leadership. In a changing world, the most innovative leaders will not exhibit a need to have it all figured out. Rather, they will bring vulnerability, right action, and curiosity to their organizations, leading by example.

VULNERABILITY: In a post #metoo era, the need for vulnerability is greater than ever. If we maintain that everyone must already know all of the answers, there is simply no way to improve. We must be able to admit what we do not know, what we do not understand, where our mistrust gets triggered, and where we do not feel able to speak up. We must create cultures that model the ethic of healthy vulnerability from top levels of leadership.

RIGHT ACTION: The most innovative leaders will hear from the people in their organizations, and take action based on what is good for the whole. I am in no way advocating that workplaces decrease productivity by focusing on emotional processes. But leaders who are willing to get real with their employees will ask for real feedback to affect needed change through effective right action, improving employee relations and organizational health.

CURIOSITY: I worked at a charter school that championed character development, and one of the primary teachings was of “curiosity and courage.” These two go hand in hand. Let’s be willing to get curious about others’ experiences – men, women, & non-binary – so that we can lead with the courage to be compassionate and relatable.

Gender Equity does not have to be a scary topic. It does not have to be a finger-pointing topic. We all have bias and we all have something to gain when we get curious and vulnerable about one another’s experiences. I believe that we can safely learn about the experiences of others and to create safe and optimal workplace environments for all.

Sarah Poet, M.Ed is a thought leader in gender equity, feminine & masculine leadership, and authentic relationships. She offers mediation and leadership training services to organizations looking to innovate gender equity practices. You can learn more and contact her at www.sarahpoet.com/reconciliation.