How to thrive as a female leader in a male-dominated sector

As a female C-Suite leader, my background is a little unusual. I’ve been an HR specialist in male-dominate sectors, including the finance sector – investment banking, in fact – and my most recent years, in fast growth tech companies.

I love working with innovative, commercially-focused people, particularly those in technology and engineering. Historically, we’re talking about the types of organizations that struggle with diversity and where you don’t see many women in C-Suite positions.

As one of the few women in those male-dominated environments, I identified three top tips for others to succeed in them, too.

1. Language is key for women to create boardroom presence

Very early on in my career, in the banking industry, it seemed like the most senior person in the room was a man. When he entered, he was in a power suit and tie and he exuded a sort of presence.

As a female, I wondered how I could emulate that, what was my equivalent. Someone said to me, in all seriousness: wear a silk scarf (in lieu of a tie). So there was a very traditional view on how leaders looked.

For me however, I wanted to focus more on power talking than dressing.

Not that I dressed down, but I was far more interested in how my thinking and language could earn my place in the boardroom more than clothing could. That meant decoding the language of leadership.

I discovered that you need to be insightful, opinionated and emphatic – even loud.

In those male environments, you need to be talking about numbers. Even if numbers weren’t the most helpful way to develop a specific outcome, you need to be able to use numerical language.

For example, when it comes to creating a diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) strategy, the leaders would be obsessed with target numbers. Now, that’s absolutely not the best way to tackle a DEIB strategy (although there is room for it), but it’s what the leaders in that environment demand.

So to be successful, you need to be metrics-literate, but you also have to be insightful and emphatic about your views on them.

In the case of DEIB, I found that I could talk about the numbers to satisfy that demand, but then interrogate their usefulness, and provide a commercial rationale for an alternative approach, as well as a smart way to measure that alternative methodology.

That said, it’s not just about paying lip service to the numbers. In fact, you actually need to be commercially literate.

In my case, being a strategic HR leader means knowing the value of people.

So, like me, you have to be able to understand data analytics to really highlight the power of strategic people leadership, and drive specific, measurable business outcomes.

2. Conquer impostor syndrome by increasing your self-awareness

Like many ambitious people, I’ve experienced impostor syndrome. Research tends to show that women experience it more than men. Harnessing it can actually be a positive, however.

To do this, it’s important to notice when you’re experiencing imposter syndrome. You can go into what I call ‘helicopter mode’ just checking in on yourself from time to time, as if zooming out on you in your career.

You can then run a sort of personal diagnosis, and interrogate how you feel and why. Are you too comfortable in your career or do you need to step up? Have you stepped into a new role, or a more senior position and don’t feel like you’re settled yet?

When you start this kind of internal analysis, you develop good self-awareness, and that is a critical skill as a leader.

It puts you in a position to decide how you feel about where you’re at and what you can do about it. Hyper achievers like those in the leadership team I work with, have a well-developed emotional intelligence (or emotional quotient, known as EQ), and a heightened sense of self awareness.

They’re able to look in on themselves on a regular basis and challenge themselves to push forward out of their comfort zone.

3. Transfer your natural emotional intelligence into a commercial environment

As mentioned, I’ve always supported technology or engineering. Most of the talent is biased towards super practical and technical people – those with high IQs.

We’re often not talking about an emotionally intelligent group who are comfortable talking about their feelings.

Since the pandemic, however, mental and emotional wellbeing has played a much larger role than ever in the workplace, and ours is no different. As a female senior leader, I think I’m well placed to use my own EQ to lead here.

So in a recent role, I built a wellbeing program for 45,000 people that was translated into 15 languages.

As I was supporting a huge workforce of scientists and technical people, however, I created a program built around the science behind wellbeing. Rather than dictating to them, it enabled their curiosity and sense of learning.

Stimulating their neural pathways resulted in dopamine in their system, which would reduce stress in this particular way. For them, that made it interesting and engaging. And for the company, it would make a long term difference to get the most out of their talent.

The approach was an emotionally intelligent one. It didn’t need financial targets, nor did it involve wearing a silk scarf but it harnessed the female superpower: EQ. And of course, to help get the rest of the leadership team behind it, there’s a pile of useful data analysis which shows the benefits.

And the same approach can work for you. Rather than shy away from EQ and look at IQ, you can blend both to be successful in the boardroom.

The International Festival of HR is back! Discover amazing speakers from the world of HR and business at UNLEASH America on 26-27 April 2023.