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.
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.
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.
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